


Home Is Where

by seatbeltdrivein



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: fmabigbang, Gen, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seatbeltdrivein/pseuds/seatbeltdrivein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU, diverting from first!anime canon pre-series.] After being the unfortunate sole survivor of his team in a second massacre, Roy runs from the memory of the war of Lior straight into the most infamous house in Resembool, a tiny two-story that's seen its share of death. Rather than finding solitude in his grief and a steady enough hand to finally end it all, Roy finds himself caught up in the story of the Elric family. As the pieces of their fate come together, Roy is sure of only one thing – that not all is right with the little house on the hill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2010 - 2011 FMA Big Bang challenge.

The circle was failing him. Ed pulled himself along the ground, the Truth still ringing clear in his mind despite the pain radiating from the bloodied stump where his leg should have been. _Al_ , he thought, desperate, staring at the suit of armor and using every last ounce of willpower he could to keep himself conscious. _Al!_

Equivalent exchange was not nearly as innocent as they'd thought. No meager offering would be enough for it. Ed had seconds, maybe, to get it right, or his brother was gone forever. Al didn't deserve it.

Ed swiped more of the blood pooling from his leg and continued the circle on chest, fingers trembling. "I'm sorry, Al." His voice was faint, a wavering whisper. "I wish there was another way."

The circle was complete, blood painted on his chest, his arms, his stomach, and Ed raised his hands and placed them where he could feel his heart beating, closing his eyes and pushing everything he had left into it.

 _Please, let it not be too late!_

The Gate was waiting for him.

*

The paper was wrinkled, folded into the tiniest square Roy could manage and then unraveled again just so he could reread the words, _discharged with honor_ , and recycle the urge to vomit.

The roar of the engine was dying down into a whisper, the scenery no longer whipping by the window so much as crawling, grass and sheep and a tiny little station peppered with people filling his view. _Welcome to Resembool_ , the sign read, and then something about population, but there was a woman standing in front of that part, wrestling with a little boy, mouth opening and closing quickly. Roy could only imagine what she was saying. _Just wait until your father gets here_ , most likely. The little boy didn't seem impressed.

When the train stopped, Roy sat and watched the passengers leave until the flood became a trickle. Then he stood, held his suitcase close to his side, and disembarked. Resembool was different from Central, from East, and most importantly, it was a whole world away from Ishbal or Lior. Roy watched the people. The people at the station watched him, but there wasn't a single one of them who made a move to speak to him. It was a nice feeling.

"Colonel Mustang?"

"I'm retired," Roy said.

The old man nodded his head, flushing at the mistake. "Of course, of course. It's easy to forget. You've done such a wonderful job protecting the country. I'm sure the military was sorry to see you go, Mr. Mustang."

Roy wouldn't hold his breath about that, any of it, really. "Thank you," he said. "Are you here from the estate office?"

"Yes, sir," the old man said, still nodding. His forehead was slick with sweat, and he kept passing nervous glances at Roy's gloved hands. "The house is a bit of a walk, so I thought I'd come by with my car to drive you. Ah, and Mr. Jenner wanted me to," a pause to wet his dry mouth, "make certain that _you_ were certain. The firm has a very strict policy about no buy-backs, so once the deed to the house is signed, it's a done fact."

"I'm quite certain."

"We'd hate for you to be disappointed. The, ah, the house has a bit of a reputation. And there are others, of course, in neighboring areas, if you're sure about settling in the rural parts of East. Or we could look for you in South! They have a number of excellent towns—"

"I'm sure the house will be fine. Your car is…?"

The old man took out a kerchief and dabbed at his forehead. "It's just parked at the road, Mr. Mustang. If you're certain…"

"I am."

Another pause, then, "They say the house is full of ghosts." The old man said it with a laugh. "I suppose you don't mind?"

"I'm sure I'll feel right at home."

The old man started at that. "I—I see." He tucked the kerchief into his vest pocket and nodded. "Very well, Mr. Mustang. The papers are in the car. You can sign them on the way." He extended his wrinkled hand, and Roy stared at it, watching it shake. "My name is Oliver Collins. Mr. Jenner has assigned me to assist in closing the deal."

Roy took his hand and turned his palm. Oliver's eyes fell on the red emblem. "It's a pleasure, Mr. Collins," Roy said.

In the car, he signed the papers and watched the countryside go sliding by the window. Oliver couldn't stop talking. "It's a very interesting story," he was saying. "Terribly sad, of course," he added hastily with another wary look at his passenger. "They say a whole family died in that house, one after the other. There's meant to be a boy left, but," a laugh, "it seems more of a novel, doesn't it? I'm sure it isn't true."

"I'm sure," Roy agreed, if for no other reason than to be agreeable. "A fascinating story. Perhaps I'll find out."

"Find out?"

"About the ghosts," Roy amended. "If I see them, I'll be certain to let you know."

The old man didn't say anything after that, just kept his eyes glued to the unpaved road and his mouth a tight line until they were parked at the bottom of a hill, staring up through the windshield at a quaint wooden cottage. "That's the house, Mr. Mustang." Oliver wet his lips and drummed his thumbs restlessly against the steering wheel. "If there isn't anything else, sir, then I'm afraid I'll need to go. There's another client, you see."

"Of course. I'd hate to keep you. It's been a pleasure, Mr. Collins."

Oliver nodded and smiled and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Of course, always a pleasure doing business, sir."

"I'll be certain to let you know," Roy continued. Oliver frowned.

"Let me know?"

Roy turned to look at the house and felt the old man turn with him. "About the ghosts, of course." He offered a thin smile.

Oliver didn't reply. He gave Roy a final, nervous look and started the car again, pulling back onto the road and leaving Roy at the bottom of the hill, hand raised and smile still in place.

The house was small compared to his military-issued townhome in Central, a little wooden two-story with everything on the first level. The master bedroom, he recalled, was all that there was on the top floor.

Or so he'd been told. He'd never so much as set foot in the place, but he had the key in his hand now, the key and the deed and a big chunk of his wallet gone for it.

"Roy Mustang," he said, trudging up the hill, "age twenty-nine." He paused and looked at the door, the key in his hand. "Murdered in his home," he continued with a flourish, tossing the key over his shoulder and somewhere he was certain to never find it. The door was frail, worn thin by time. He only had to give it a single sharp kick and the wood around the lock splintered, giving way to the dark interior. "At night," he added. "While the man was in his bed sleeping, if you'd believe it."

It wasn't as creative as a house haunted by a dead family, granted, but it was sure to make the second page of the _Eastern Quarterly_ , at least. Second or third.

He let the door swing uncertainly on its hinges behind him, stepping inside and wandering aimlessly. The kitchen was directly to the right. An icebox, a cabinet, a table, and two chairs. Two bags sat on the table, packed full of the food he'd requested Jenner to have sent to the house. Roy was only mildly surprised to find everything in order after only purchasing the place on a whim the day before.

Then again, Jenner had mentioned having a nephew in the military who'd served in Lior, in Roy's district. The waver in his voice had told the story all on its own, and Roy –

Well, he'd laughed, actually. Laughed and asked where Jenner's nephew was. Jenner had swallowed and taken off his glasses to polish away a smear before answering in that same wavering voice, "He killed himself two weeks after returning, Mr. Mustang."

Killed himself, Roy'd echoed. Good show, good man. Jenner hadn't agreed, but he wasn't a soldier, so Roy knew better than to trouble himself with an ignorant viewpoint.

Time no longer an issue, Roy left the stuffed bags to the kitchen and stepped back out, giving the busted front door a minute glance before turning resolutely in the opposite direction, through another doorway, a sitting room just beyond its threshold. If a family _had_ died in that house, where had it happened? The part of Roy that came to life when he stepped into Lior and died abruptly when he'd left it couldn't help but wonder. Perhaps, he thought to himself, the sitting room was where it happened. A disease, maybe? Or something more sinister.

A murdered family and perhaps the murderer would come back, confusing Roy's presence with not having done his job.

Roy, after a moment of brief thought, returned to the kitchen and turned the lights on. When night fell, the windows would be the only thing illuminated for miles, likely. Anyone could see.

He drew back the curtains, too. For good measure.

"Murdered in his bed," Roy said again to himself, and then he laughed. It was ridiculous. The whole situation was ridiculous.

Roy sank into one of the wooden chairs parked up against the table and rooted through the bag closest to him, shoving aside canned goods and little jars of preservatives to drag out a liter of gin and a pack of Lucky Strikes, his hand around the tiny box causing a shift in his consciousness, a memory of a man with ashtray cologne sifting to the forefront of his mind.

He lit one of the cigarettes like he'd lit Havoc's funeral pyre and said a prayer to a god he'd long since ceased acknowledging with that first precious drag.

For the rest of the day's remaining light, Roy sat at the table and stared out the opened window, lighting smoke after smoke and wondering why he felt so dry.

*

"You are so drunk."

Roy didn't lift his head at the voice. "C'n't help it," he slurred, forehead pressed to the cool surface of the table. There was a running monologue in his head, currently on the topic of just how he was managing to stay in his chair, and Roy only caught bits and pieces of it as it filtered through the haze of inebriation stifling his mind and stuffing his head.

"Waste of flesh, that's what you are." A derisive laugh. Roy kept his head down and his eyes closed, ignoring the steady stream of speech's sudden shift from _and my left buttock stays in the chair because my brain sends steady impulses through the_ , to _wasn't I alone in this house?_

"No," Roy said to the voice, because his mouth wasn't working well enough to say _and the hell with you, anyway_. He groped blindly at the table for the bottle he'd been sipping on since daylight, and the voice laughed from somewhere behind him, faint, as though speaking through a wall.

"No? What's no? Do you really need another drink, you stupid old man?"

Roy stopped at the old comment, lifted his head (oh, the bottle's on the floor?) and stared blearily around. At some point, the lights had gone off, so he was sitting alone in the dark kitchen, a chilled nighttime wind blowing in through the opened windows and sending clumps of ash across the table and over Roy's arm.

"I," he said with as much clarity has he could, "'m not 'n ol' man."

There was silence, the feel of the room morphing into something Roy wasn't sure he'd understand even if he'd been sober. "You can hear me." It wasn't a question. Roy let out a shrill, drunken giggle.

"Good ears," he said, gesturing vaguely at his head. The voice was coming from behind him, he was pretty sure, but how to turn that way…? Roy shifted in his seat and nearly toppled himself over the side.

"You can hear me," the voice said again, sounding faint, shocked. Roy nodded and finally, finally, managed to work out the mechanics of turning around while maintaining his balance.

The room was – completely empty, actually. Roy frowned, bracing one hand on the back of the chair as he wiped at his eyes. Still no one. "Hey," he said to the room, "hey! Where'd y'go?" No answer.

It was an odd thing, really, Roy thought. Drinking and hallucinating wasn't new to him, but disembodied voices that were halfway pleasant, if a bit rude, weren't really his forte.

When Roy was unlucky enough to see and hear things that weren't there, they were usually things he'd rather not think about, the woman who'd promised to watch his back reaching her hand up at him, legs bloodied stumps and the ground around her charred and littered with shrapnel, while she bled out her life and her love, desperate to just get his hand in hers –

Roy let his forehead hit the table again. _Don't think, don't think._

Living was such a burden.

*

Morning found Roy on the floor, the empty bottle clutched to his face and the ashtray upturned not three feet away.

Someone was humming.

Reaching up with an aimless, grabbing motion, Roy caught hold of the edge of the table and dragged himself to his feet, looking around with the slow, sluggish air of a man not quite in his own head. The humming was faint, but it was there, somewhere in the house, Roy _swore_ it –

 _You can hear me._

The low noise stopped abruptly, and Roy's mind chased after it, the sound sliding through the cracks in his brain and remaining just out of reach.

 _Do you really need another drink, you stupid old man?_

A voice with no body. Roy could recall the moment with uneasy clarity before it disappeared into an inebriated haze. "I'm losing my mind," he murmured softly, pushing his hair from his eyes.

He needed to go into town, though perhaps 'need' was too strong of a word. What Roy _needed_ was a shower because, hell, every time he lifted up his arms he cringed. It was like he'd spent the night running a marathon only to come home and lay around in his own filth for a few hours before deigning to bathe. Either way, too little too late, because the sun was up and the day was starting.

Roy lifted up his arm again and made a face. "God."

A shower would be prudent. Some part of Roy he'd long since considered dead recoiled at the state of his life, appearance, and sanity. All that pride, everything he'd worked for, and it all ended in nothing: waking up on a cold kitchen floor, smelling like shit and looking like it, too.

Maes would have been so disappointed.

Roy's things had been delivered hours before his own arrival. He'd still not bothered going upstairs to the master bedroom, and he was tempted not to. There was an odd hope that he'd never make it.

"Falling down the stairs," he said to himself, taking the steep staircase three at a time and standing unsteadily at the top once he'd reached it, looking back over his shoulders. "I fell and broke my neck," he announced to the bedroom. "By the time anyone bothered coming to look for me, I was already decomposed." He paused before adding, "Such is life."

The bedroom was completely unfinished, the only thing in it a single mattress in the center, a chest of drawers pushed against the wall, and a large trunk at the foot of the mattress, covered in stickers of all different languages and looking well-used. Roy looked at it and smelled smoke and charred flesh. Then he turned around and went back down the stairs.

It was a strange feeling, being so entirely alone. Roy couldn't even remember a time he'd been so – so utterly free of all obligations, though he'd give anything in the world to not be.

The shower was just like the small cubed stalls he'd had in the military housing. Roy stepped in feeling like he'd walked into a memory, half expecting Maes to come running in the door to assault him with a rolled up wet towel.

And that humming – Roy looked around the bathroom, head swiveling back and forth as quick as he could (he felt completely idiotic for his trouble), but he couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It wasn't even constant, just a few notes without any true rhythm, as though someone was in the house and absentmindedly humming while doing chores.

Roy stood still, soaped up palms in his hair, and closed his eyes and strained his ears. It was just a dull, short noise every so often, no footsteps, no voice like the one he'd heard during the previous night ( _did I even really hear something?_ ).

If there was someone in the house, Roy would gladly give them his back to do what they would. Why bother stopping them?

His own death was easy to imagine. Someone he'd wronged – an Ishbalan woman, perhaps, one widowed by his actions, would show up on his doorstep, gun in hand, and blow a hole in his head right there.

Hair clean, Roy juggled with a bar of soap, cursing when it tried to slip out of his hands, and thought, _maybe a knife_. A knife wound, maybe right in his heart. A more personal death would be fitting, after all. If she stabbed him in the heart, it would be equivalent, would make more sense than anything else in his life.

When the last of the soapsuds swirled down the drain, Roy let his morbid fantasies disappear with it. He had things to do.

"You're so _weird_!"

Roy took a sharp turn stepping out of the shower, towel clutched tight around his waist and heart hammering against his chest as he spun, eyes darting to the mirror, to the open doorway, to –

 _The open doorway._

"I closed that," Roy muttered aloud, staring at the door and watching the slight back-and-forth swing, a barely there motion. "I swear I did…" But no amount of standing in the bathroom closed the door, nor did it clear Roy's head. Perhaps he'd left it open after all, perhaps his mind was just playing tricks on him.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Roy could make all the excuses in the world but they didn't change the fact that he was alone in the house.

"You're losing your mind," he muttered angrily, then realized he was speaking to himself as though to a stranger and gave his head a rough shake before throwing the towel aside to pull on his clothes.

Whether he was losing his mind or not, Roy didn't know, but he had the niggling feeling that he _wasn't_ quite alone in the house, despite the lack of evidence. There couldn't be anyone. He knew that, knew there wasn't a person for miles, that he, with all his training, would easily be able to tell if there was an intruder. If there was one, they of course couldn't be there for any _good_ reason.

Roy's mind drifted back to the thought of the Ishbalan woman standing on his doorstep with wide, furious eyes and knuckles white around the handle of a knife. He almost hoped there _was_ someone in the house.

Hair still damp, Roy stumbled out the front door while trying to pull on his shoes, not bothering to close it behind him. The lock was too busted, anyway. The thing couldn't stay shut unless he used alchemy, and, well.

He wasn't going to use alchemy, not for the sake of his own comfort.

The ride to the house from town had taken ten minutes, almost exactly, so Roy figured he was in for a good half an hour of walking. Every step he took down the road kicked up a cloud of dirt that stuck to the legs of his pants and his shoes, and he kept inhaling it and having to stop every so often just to pause and breathe. _That_ he hadn't expected. It reminded him of the desert.

"For fuck's sake, it's just dirt," he muttered, disgusted with how pathetic he'd become, wanting shake at every small reminder. Roy knew he shouldn't make a habit of talking to himself, but it was a bit late, especially considering he had no one to prevent him from doing so any longer.

They were, after all, all dead, what was left of them stuck six feet under with a government paid for grave marker that wasn't even half of what they deserved.

Roy was tempted to turn right around and head back to the house. He was only five minutes down the road, he reasoned with himself. He could just turn around and go right back home, because the more he walked, the more he was thinking, and at the rate he was going, he'd be in hysterics by the time he got to town.

Behind him, just down the road, the horn of a car sounded. Roy stopped and turned around, watching the old automobile chug along, slowing when it reached him. An old woman sat behind the wheel, a pipe sticking out of the side of her mouth, smoke billowing up from it. "You headin' into town?"

"Yes," Roy said after a moment, pushing down the urge to ask if she was real. It was terribly convenient, is all. It's not that he was thinking he was losing his mind, not really.

Honestly, he wasn't.

The old woman gestured to the passenger side door, and Roy shrugged and got in, only feeling mildly uncomfortable.

"I've never seen your face around here before," the old woman observed. "You must be new."

"Yes," he said again. Then, somewhat awkwardly, he added, "Roy Mustang. I moved in yesterday."

"Pinako Rockbell," the old woman offered. "Where's your place?"

"A few minutes back the way you came. It's a house on top of a hill," Roy said, and the old woman jerked her head to the side and nearly drove them off the road before she gathered herself, clearing her throat.

"You moved into that house?" she asked. "I'm surprised. Didn't you hear about it?"

"People died in it," Roy said. "I haven't heard much more than that."

"That's usually enough for some people," Pinako muttered, taking a drag from her pipe.

"People die every day," Roy said simply. "Unless there's something more sinister to the story, it's just something that happens to everyone eventually."

"Cheerful, aren't you?" Pinako wasn't so much as glancing over at him anymore, focused on the road and the smoke streaming up from the bowl of her pipe. Her hands clenched the wheel. "And if there is something more?"

He shrugged. What was one more tragedy? If anything, Roy could drink to it and the spirits wronged in his house. Just another day, that was all. "I don't think it'll make much of a difference."

The town was just a bit further down the road, the small squat buildings growing against the skyline as Pinako drove closer. Resembool wasn't big, would barely be a speck of dirt on a map compared to Central.

Roy thought it was all right.

"I'll be here for an hour, maybe a little less," Pinako said as she parked up near the side of a building with a sign that said _MARKET_ and nothing else. "If you want a ride back, be waiting."

"Thank you." Roy didn't need a ride back. He didn't need company, didn't need someone trying to talk to him. Pinako, if the look on her face was anything to go by, didn't expect to see him again.

Cigarettes, maybe a bottle or three, Roy counted out in his mind. He was feeling particularly maudlin after having to deal with the old woman and her teasing hints of a story, so Roy went right ahead into the market and pulled out his cash. He asked for three packs. "Lucky Strikes, if you've got them."

"S'an outdated brand if I ever heard one," the man behind the counter laughed. "Only soldiers 'n ol' men smoke thems."

"I might be one or I might be both," Roy offered, shoving all three packs into his various pockets and leaving.

"Hey, don't you want your change?" the man shouted after him. Roy raised a hand in acknowledgement and walked right out the door.

Resembool wasn't so small that it didn't have its share of drunkards. Roy looked up at the sun, estimated that it had to be barely noon, and did himself the service of ambling into the pub. It had just opened. One man was standing just outside the front door, flipping the sign, and three older men were already standing outside watching him, waiting. Roy joined them when they trickled in, a weary stream of men who hadn't anything else to do with themselves.

They ignored the newcomer, all of them settling into different chairs with a familiar ease that spoke of repetition. Roy stood in the center of the dingy little pub before choosing a stool at the bar proper and ordering a whiskey.

"It's a bit early," the bartender said. He didn't argue though, just got the glass and filled it to the order, setting it in front of Roy and leaving to deal with other customers, ones with familiar stories. Roy was an anomaly. It made sense that no one would want to add his pain to their own.

But Roy knew he shouldn't think about that. Maudlin, he remembered, the old woman had triggered him into acting emotional, and wasn't that a pity? He took a drink, cringing at the taste. He hadn't had a liquor so cheap and poorly made sense the trenches in Lior, since his men poured it for him, toasting to a quick war and then back home.

When the war ended after a grueling three years, Roy had returned home alone.

He made a face and downed the rest of the glass in one swift gulp. It was too damn early to be thinking of – of those sorts of things. Those were the nightmares he preferred to keep for when he was actually asleep, thanks ever so much.

Without pretense, he ordered another drink, finished it with startling speed, and ordered another. The sun was still up when he looked out the window.

Roy sat at the bar with no plans to move, the day carrying on without him.

*

Alcohol was a familiar comfort, was Ishbal and Lior and even earlier. At the academy, Roy learned the easiest way to forget everything was at the bottom of a bottle. In Ishbal, he took that lesson to heart, draining cheap liquor like water even as he was choking on the stench of burning corpses. Maes had hated it, even though he was there with Roy just as much. Between the two of them, they could down more liquor in a night than any other soldier bothered to declare. Only, Maes put it down when the war ended and picked up Gracia instead. He could bear it, he'd told Roy. The memories meant nothing so long as he had her.

Roy hoped Gracia thought memories _were_ enough.

"It's closing time." The bartender had been watching Roy all day and had gone so far as to refuse him drinks after the sun began sinking out the only window in the dingy little building. "You're gonna kill yourself if you keep this up."

Roy could feel drool pooling out of his mouth, knew he probably looked like some degenerate, like the type of person you'd cross the street to avoid. Maybe even call the police. His very presence was a disruption of the peace.

His mind could puzzle out the words, had a constant stream of them running through his head, but when the bartender looked at him and asked if he had a way home, the _I have two legs, don't I?_ got stuck somewhere between his brain and his tongue, and what came out was more of a pathetic gurgle.

The bartender sighed and turned to say something to someone over his shoulder. Roy took that as his cue to get the hell out. Prison wasn't really where he wanted to die, he wasn't even fucking doing anything _wrong_ –

"Hey, wait a second! Where are you going?"

Roy stumbled into a table, startling a shriek from whoever was sitting there. Grabbing onto the table for support, Roy called back, "Home," and tried to keep going.

"Hey, now," the bartender said. He was around the bar, walking toward Roy with his hands up. "Why don't you just stay in town tonight, huh? There's an inn—"

Roy waved at him, a violent motion, and jerked his head toward the door, stumbled at it and held his hand out, fingers poised to snap at the bartender before he realized _I'm not fucking wearing my gloves, shit, I'm not wearing them_ , and then, after another moment in which everyone in the bar seemed to be staring at him, he had the clarity to realize he'd just thought of killing the man.

He _would_ have killed him, if he'd been wearing his gloves, and Roy had no idea why he'd even considered it.

The bartender still had his hands up, giving Roy a baffled look. "Listen—"

No, Roy decided, he wasn't going to listen. He turned around and made it all the way out the door, letting it shut behind him, before he stumbled again and landed flat on his face, the taste of dirt overpowering the liquor.

He didn't bother trying to get up. There were people moving around behind him, voices saying something about him, he was sure. Of _course_ he'd become their entertainment. Resembool didn't breed entertainment, not like Central. Roy could hardly blame them.

Groaning, he turned his head to the side and tried to breathe in air rather than dirt. Someone was behind him, pulling on his arms and guiding him to stand, cursing at him and – he couldn't make out the words. Roy couldn't even see anything, and it took him a few brief panic filled moments to realize that his eyes were closed.

"Oh," he said aloud.

"You," came the voice, obviously angry, "are nothing but trouble. I knew it from the minute I saw you."

"Get out of my house," Roy mumbled. The voice seemed to take offense to that.

"House? You idiot," it growled at him, "you're lying in the middle of the streets! Get yourself up on your feet, there's a lad," and he was moving then, feet wobbling unsteadily beneath him, but he was definitely walking.

What a novel experience.

"Nothing but trouble," the voice was saying. Roy let whoever's hands were on his shoulders guide him, and then he was sitting down, forehead resting against something cool. "Stumbling out of a bar like a no good—who the hell drinks like that, anyway? Young people," the voice finished, grumbling darkly. Roy couldn't make out what it was saying, but he wanted to apologize for the trouble – not that his tongue, the thick useless thing, seemed to be willing to let him.

Whatever he was leaning against felt good, cooling his overheated body and staving off the urge to vomit. Roy let his eyes stay closed and rocked with the rhythmic motion of wherever he was. Sleep, for once, came easy.

*

"I'm sick of looking at this place." Havoc snubbed out another cigarette against the bottom of his boot and chucked it over with the rest of them. Several days had passed without the chance to leave the trenches, and the pile of charred butts was increasing at an alarming rate.

"Try smoking less," Roy had suggested, but Havoc wasn't overly impressed with that idea.

"You're sick of looking at it?" Breda huffed. "I'm sick of looking at _you_."

"Hey, fuck off."

Their banter lacked the energy of the first few weeks in Lior. It was a war, after all. Energy was best reserved, used as a measure of sustaining their own lives. Roy knew war well enough that he barely ever moved for anything that wasn't an enemy, would sit with his fingers at the ready, resting against his thigh, staring up the dirt walls and waiting. A soldier was always ready.

"General Hakuro has a message, sir."

"Bring it here, Lieutenant." Hawkeye came quickly to his side and handed a dirty sheet of paper, the edges frayed, over to him. Her face was wan and blank, just like he hadn't seen it since the last war. Roy didn't want to see that look on anyone.

There was a reason he forbade his men from keeping mirrors.

Roy scanned over the paper and nodded, crumpled the thing in his fist. "He's sending us in?"

Havoc and Breda stopped snipping at each other for a beat and looked at him, expressions guarded. "In?" Havoc looked uneasy. "So, we're going to see some action, finally?"

"Don't sound so eager." Then, to Hawkeye, "Tell the General the message was received. We'll be waiting here for further instructions."

With a last weary salute, she was gone. Roy turned his eyes back to the wall.

 _A soldier is always ready._


	2. Chapter 2

"So, you're awake?" Roy blinked, worked his lips around some foul and unknown taste, his mouth dry and feeling as though he'd spent the entire night chewing cotton.

"Where am I?"

"My house." The old woman, Pinako, was looking down at him. Roy tried to meet her gaze, but the sudden motion of trying to sit set his stomach roiling. That foul taste was suddenly much worse, rushing up his throat and out his mouth and all over his lap, the sheets, the bed. Pinako was cursing in the background, but she didn't move to help him, just let him expel the night's poison.

When there was nothing left to regurgitate and he was just dry heaving, hands braced against bile stained sheets, Pinako watched him from the end of the bed, pipe resting at her closed lips. "I hope you don't plan on making a habit of this."

Roy stared at his hands.

"You won't make it another year, if you keep this up," Pinako continued. "Kind of a waste, wouldn't you say, young man?"

Won't make it another year? That – that was fine. Roy looked up at her, feeling as though he'd been run over by a train and dragged (what was left of him) from the tracks. "I don't plan to trouble you."

"That's not really an answer," Pinako said. "Ah, well. Reckless young people will do as they wish, I suppose." She fumbled through her pockets then, grumbling something about a match, and Roy looked down at his bare hands and thought, _I could have done that._

Then again, sifting through the blurred memories of the night before, of his hands and fingers in the face of an innocent bystander – probably it was best that he didn't have his gloves.

Pathetic, that's what it was. Nearly thirty years old, and he was – he was just existing for as long as he had to. Roy would have been happy to be buried next to the rest of his men, next to the fragments of his life Lior had shattered.

"I'll go get you some water," Pinako said, shocking him back to reality. She walked out of the room, leaving only a trail of fresh smoke behind her, and Roy contemplated jumping out the window.

Trying to crawl out of the bed and somehow getting over to the window was too terrible to contemplate, though, in his current state. Roy's stomach made an uneasy liquid sound and the room toppled, spun in his view. He couldn't remember how much time he'd spent drinking, couldn't even picture more than two or three of the glasses he'd emptied, despite knowing there were a great many more in the span of the previous night.

His feet were on the ground and he was facing the window when Pinako returned, glass in hand. The breeze coming in through the window felt good against his feverish skin, quelling the nausea and the sensation of being at once too hot and too cold.

"Going somewhere?" she asked, tone mild, and set the glass down on the bedside table, out of reach to Roy unless he climbed all the way back in bed. Clever shrew.

"Not really," he said, pulling himself back onto the bed, legs swinging straight until he was lying down again, making the act of drinking rather difficult. Water dribbled down his chin and shirt, but it felt so good against his raw throat that before he knew it, the glass was empty and he was still treacherously thirsty. Pinako watched him with sharp eyes and took the glass when it was empty, pretending not to notice the way he stared after it.

"You ought to go bathe," she suggested. "I can get some clothes for you. I'm not sure there's any point in trying to save those." Roy wasn't sure he'd try even if there was a point. The cloth of his shirt was soaked in vomit. The clothes would reek for months no matter what he did.

"Throw them out," he said, still sluggish. "I'll bathe later."

The drink left him feeling better, though he was still craving more water. He felt like he could drink a lake – that same wretched feeling of dehydration, straight out of the desert and his memories like it was a punishment made specifically for him.

Sometimes, Roy wondered if maybe, just maybe, he thought too much of himself.

"You're already miserable," Pinako said sternly. "Don't make it worse. You'll feel well enough to walk after a bath," which was apparently his cue to get the hell out. He must have overstayed his welcome.

"What time is it?"

"Just after eleven," she responded. "You passed out during the drive here last night." She frowned, thinking. "I'm pretty certain that was around midnight. My mind's not what it used to be, though, so there's really no telling."

"I'm sure your mind is fine," Roy reassured, on autopilot. "Women's minds often outstay men's by—"

"Save the charm for someone who cares," she cut him off, blunt. "Bathroom's down the hall. Drop your clothes outside the door, and I'll get them when I come by."

Resisting the urge to _yes, ma'am_ the woman, Roy tried to stand, unsteady on his legs. The room was still spinning, and every step he took seemed to bring the door further away. His head throbbed in time with the fall of his feet. Roy somehow still managed to stumble out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. When he closed the door behind him, it felt like he'd been running for hours.

*

Clean but still feeling like he'd gone through the wringer, Roy left Pinako's house. Once home, Roy carried himself up to his bedroom, itching for some sort of action, for something to break the monotony he'd trapped himself in. He ignored the trunk and went straight for the chest of drawers up against the wall, jerking open each drawer until he found the little box he'd left his gloves in. When he went to pull it out, his hand brushed up against something cloth like. Frowning, he pulled out the box and whatever else was in it, drawing out an apron, stained yellow with time and splotched with residue from many a night over the stove.

It was, without a doubt, not his.

The gloves were, though. He dropped the apron on the bed and sat down next to it, pulling his gloves from the box and sliding them on with a practiced ease, the feel of the fabric comfortable, familiar. It had been so long.

He felt the urge to burn something, the habit so long ingrained in him that it left him physically uneasy to have gone so long. Alchemy was what he was, not simply something he did. Roy smoothed his fingers together, listening to the sound of the fabric rubbing against itself. He looked down at the apron. It didn't belong in the house, wasn't his, so why not? Why not get rid of it the best way he could?

Throwing it on the floor, he snapped, a gentle barely-there motion, and watched the thing ignite. Seeing the fire felt like coming home after a long journey. Roy found himself relaxing despite the persistent throbbing in his head, body slumping down the brighter the flame burned. He'd been conditioned for it, and he finally had a reason to be thankful for the fire.

Even after the apron was reduced to bits of charred thread and ashes, Roy found it beyond easy, for the first time in months, to lay back and close his eyes. Sleep seemed so simple.

So really, it made sense that when sleep was finally within his grasp, dreamless and kind, reality would come to tear it away. Though, to be fair, reality seemed a questionable concept to Roy as of late.

There was very little else in the world as disturbing as waking up in one's own home to the sound of a child weeping desolately alongside the firm knowledge that there was no child in the house. Roy lay frozen in bed, eyes clenched shut, and listened to the sound, a pathetic whimpering that, if he were to strain his ears, might contain the shrill crying of a child calling for its mother and knowing there would be no answer.

There was something very wrong with his house.

It didn't make _sense_ , and that was the worst part. The logical part of Roy's mind, the scientist, refused any and all of the theories his overactive imagination supplied. A crying child in a house with no children, a family dead and gone – the first thing he could think of was that his house was haunted, and Roy staunchly refused to believe in something as foolish as ghosts.

The child continued to cry, and Roy stared up at the ceiling, the sheets pulled up to his chin, and waited for the morning light to creep through his bedroom window. Everything would look better in the morning, had to, because Roy honestly hated the thought of how his world could get any worse.

*

"Some days," Maes said. "Some days I just really wonder what the hell I did."

"Meaning?" Roy didn't take his eyes off the potato he was peeling.

"Meaning I keep getting stuck with a load of shit, and I can't figure out why. I hate this, Roy." Maes sounded tired, defeated. Roy put down the potato.

"It's war," he said. "It's not supposed to be nice."

"I want to go home. I want to see my family. It's been—it's been a year, hasn't it?" Maes asked, awed. "We've been here a whole goddamned year, and nothing's happened. We're going to die here, Roy."

"We're not going to die. We're going to go home, Maes. I promise."

Maes didn't say it at the time, but Roy could see it on his face.

 _You were never all that great at keeping the promises that mattered._

But he did keep his promise, just not in the way he intended. Roy went out on the battlefield and picked up every single piece of Maes he could find. He made sure they got home.

*

He'd spent the entire night dreaming about Maes Hughes, and that was never a good thing. Part of him wanted to get up, find a phone that worked and call Gracia, just to hear the woman's voice, to know she was alive and coping.

Roy wouldn't, of course, but in his head, he watched himself do it, and it was more or less the same thing anymore.

He was still in bed and having trouble finding a reason to get up. The noise from the night before was gone, and he'd managed to drift off at some point. The thought of it was still disturbing, though. Perhaps it was just another flashback, he told himself. Certainly, he'd seen plenty of children crying during both wars. The sound of it was the only thing haunting him in this house, that was all.

When he opened his eyes, sure in his conclusion, his stomach twisted into knots at the sight of the wall before him, smooth and even save for a series of random lines running vertically from the where the floor met the wall and upward where he knew the door should have been. His chest heaved, and no matter how fast he breathed, Roy couldn't seem to get enough air. Pushing off the sheets with shaking hands, Roy stood, his head completely clear of the previous day's inebriated fog, now cluttered instead with the heaviest sense of fear.

The door should have been there. It _should_ have. He walked cautiously toward the wall, ran a hand along it, feeling the strange ridges of what could have only been a rushed transmutation.

Somewhere in Resembool, Roy realized, was an alchemist – one who had been in Roy's house while he was sleeping off a hangover, possibly while he'd been stone drunk and vomiting all over himself that very first night. Suddenly, the possibility of being murdered in his sleep was no longer some suicidal fantasy. Roy, for the first time in a long time, could taste that fear, a familiar flavor tinged with the unreasonable desire to live, to survive.

The drive to escape overtaking him, Roy still managed to keep his movements slow and even, listening for any sound that might indicate something that did not belong. Grabbing his gloves off the bedside table ( _I left my gloves out, they could have come in, they could have taken my gloves_ —), Roy pulled them on, swallowing against the urge to breathe loudly in his state of panic. If someone was there, they'd know he was awake. He grabbed the bottom of the window and pushed up, deciding the best move would be to simply climb out –

But the window wouldn't open. He stared, dumbfounded, as he realized that the lock at the top of the window, the one he'd never so much as touched, had been melded into the wall, the metal that it had once been made of now nothing more than a strange, solidified puddle holding the window firmly in place.

As he stood in front of what he'd hoped would be his escape from whatever lay beyond the wall that had once been his door, the humming picked up again, the broken tune of a half-remembered lullaby.

Roy's hand was up, fingers moved to slide a spark before his mind could process it.

*

The old woman's house had to be somewhere down the road, leaving his house (he wasn't thinking about the house) between the town and wherever she lived. Roy was running, couldn’t even fathom stopping to breathe, to let air back into his lungs, because there was something _in his house_ , something that didn't belong and that he couldn't get rid of. A person, maybe, and he could still remember his initial fantasy of the family's murderer, if it had been indeed a murder, returning and thinking his job not done. That might not have been such a far-fetched idea after all.

He kept running and running until a house began growing in the distance, taller than his own and significantly closer to the road. Roy slowed to a jog, his earlier panic finally beginning to fade with the sight of some other living person, one he believed to be safe. Sure enough, Pinako was standing on the front porch, puffing on the same pipe as before and watching Roy hurry closer. Her thin, gray brows dipped down, some sort of concerned expression stealing across her wrinkled face before disappearing altogether into something much less personable.

"You'd better not be drunk," she called down from the top of the steps when he stopped just in front of them. "I'm not cleaning up after you again." She was focused on him, though, eyes drawn to the clothes, the very trousers she'd given him the day before. "What's wrong with you?" she asked finally, taking in his disheveled appearance.

"The house," Roy said, trying to slow his breathing to a normal rate. "Tell me about the people who lived there before me."

"You want to know who lived in that house?" Pinako took another puff from her pipe and tapped it out onto the floor of the porch. "I thought you said it didn't matter."

Roy kept his hands in the deep pockets of his pants to hide their shaking. "It doesn't," he lied easily. "But I've been teased with the story enough that it's piqued my curiosity. Can you blame me?" He tacked on a smile, charming as ever. Roy could barely see straight for the lack of sleep, the bags under his eyes too heavy to truly keep his vision focused. Even without drinking, he was a mess. Sobriety was hardly worth the effort, but –

He had to know.

"I reckon I can blame you for a lot of things," the old woman said, tone dry as the day they'd met. "But in town, everyone knows the story. I'm shocked you haven't heard it by now."

She was lying, of course. Pinako was completely aware of how he spent most of his days, having saved him from himself once already. Roy resisted the inappropriate and nonsensical urge to pull rank on her. "You live the closest," Roy offered. "Wouldn't you know best?"

Pinako tapped the rest of her pipe out scant centimeters from Roy's boot and turned away. "I don't have time to deal with you right now," she said. Roy could see the tense set of her jaw, the lines fanning from her eyes deepening into a frown.

Roy took a step backward. "Maybe some other time, then," he said. If he pushed her, she would shut him out completely. Patience was a lesson one learned early in the military. She didn't speak to him as he walked down the dusty path from her house, slumped, hands burrowed in his pockets and face tilted downward against the chilly wind. Roy wasn't surprised she turned him down, and in a way, it strengthened his resolve. There was something important about the house, about what happened in it. He would find out, given enough time.

But perhaps, it was time to try a different channel.

*

He hadn't been into the town since the night at the bar. He barely remembered it, had been too far gone to really even know where he was or what he'd been doing, but the townspeople, he found, weren't so quick to forget.

How most of them even _knew_ was beyond him, but they clearly all did. The moment he set foot in the town, still in the same ragged clothes and fresh off a nearly half-hour walk, a woman sweeping the walkway in front of a nearby shop scowled and turned her back on him. When he walked by her, she swept the broom in a way that sent dirt and bits of street trash at him.

So much for small town hospitality. Roy scowled at the woman and kept walking.

There was an aloof air about the town that day, at least where Roy was considered. He skulked around until the sun began sagging against the horizon, and the men of the town were out in the streets, children running through the steadily gathering night crowds to their homes.

None of them looked pleased to see Roy, either.

"You're not allowed," an older man said as he passed by.

Roy stopped, raising a brow. "Allowed?" The air was beginning to chill the darker the sky became, and he found himself wishing he'd had the presence of mind to grab a jacket before – before he'd left.

"In the bar," the man clarified, pulling a small square box from the breast pocket of his blazer, tapping a cigarette out. He waved the box at Roy, who quickly declined, his throat still raw from his last night on the town. "You made a ruckus. They don't like things like that, not around here."

Roy could hardly blame them. "I see," he said slowly. "Thank you."

"Now just a minute," the man said as Roy began to turn away. "We can talk a minute, can't we? Just two soldiers?"

"A soldier?" Roy echoed. "I'll have that cigarette now."

The old man laughed and tapped out another thin stick, passing it to Roy between two fingers. "You're an easy face to recognize," the man said. "Sanders," he introduced himself. "Second Lieutenant, stationed in North." He watched Roy brace the cigarette between his lips, holding a hand out for a lighter. "From what I hear," Sanders continued, "you don't need a light."

"I suppose that's true." Roy looked down at the gloves on his hands, grimacing. "If you don't mind, though…"

Sanders laughed, an unpleasant sound, as he flicked his lighter, holding it steady until smoke spiraled from the end of Roy's cigarette. "How was it?"

A slow inhale, exhale, then, "How was what?"

"Your war," Sanders said. "I was there the other night. I know a war when I see one."

"Ishbal," Roy said, speaking the word like scraping the scab off an unready wound. It was answer enough.

A knowing nod, then Sanders offered, "Drachma—near the border anyway. I spent three goddamn years up there, killing off those northern apes."

"And then?" Roy asked. "Then what did you do?"

"Got a train ticket," Sanders said solemnly. For the first time in a long time, Roy felt a sense of brotherhood. Another soldier, a different war – but the same view.

"Resembool's nice," Roy said, for lack of anything better.

"Sometimes," the older man agreed as he tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette, a hot clump dropping onto his work-worn boot. "So you're living here."

Opportunity was often subtle, requiring a sharp eye and a sharper mind to catch it before its door closed. Roy could at least consider himself fortunate this time. "In the house on the hill," he said, exhaling a smooth stream of smoke.

"On the hill? You mean the Elric house?" Sanders looked skeptical. "The hell'd you want to move _there_ for?"

A spark of excitement lit in Roy's gut. "I wasn't aware of the murders at the time," he said. "And no one's been very forthcoming about it, as I'm sure you can imagine." He let the thought hang and saw a flash of something in the old man's eyes.

"People in this town protect their own," Sanders said. "But it's your house. You bought it? S'paid for and all?"

"It was paid for before I ever arrived." Roy paused thoughtfully. "They were the Elrics, then?"

Sanders nodded, looking less and less at ease by the moment. He kept flicking the end of his cigarette, unaware that the middle of it had broken, the dried tobacco spilling out of the small break. "Two boys and their mom. Trisha was a nice lady."

Interesting. "No father?"

"A deserter," Sanders grunted. "He wasn't around much before, either. Never bothered with anyone in town." A thoughtful pause. "I take that back. He got on pretty good with Pinako, you know, up at the automail shop."

Roy had suspected the old woman knew more than she was willing to tell him. "Where are the boys now?"

"Well, as far as I know," Sanders looked distinctly uncomfortable, "only the one boy is still alive. The younger one, Al. His older brother's dead, a few years now."

"How did they all die?" It was the question he'd wanted an answer to for some time. Roy was quite certain there was something in the family's history that would help him.

"Trisha died in the epidemic that went through a few years back," Sanders began, "and Ed, well…"

"Well?"

"I don't think anyone actually knows what happened. I hear it was bad though, real violent. That's why his brother left." He snorted. "Or so the rumor goes."

A violent death. "In the house?" Roy asked casually. Sanders gave him an odd look.

"Maybe?" the older man hazarded. "Like I said, it's not something anyone around here really knows too well. Except the other boy, I guess. Maybe Pinako."

"Do you suppose," Roy was walking on thin ice even bothering to ask, "that the boy was murdered?"

Sanders' brow furrowed, tugging down with the corners of his mouth. "By who? No one comes through here, not really. The last person who came through here before you was the boys' father, Hohenheim."

Roy froze. "Hohenheim? The alchemist?"

"That'd be the one," Sanders confirmed, the nonchalant tone of his voice enough to tell Roy that he had no idea who Hohenheim really was. "Guess living here wasn't interesting enough for a worldly guy like that."

A thrill of fear trickled down Roy's spine like icy water. Hohenheim, the man the military had been searching for? The documents he'd come across on the man dated back at least fifty years. A supposedly dangerous man, coming through this town, disappearing – and then his own son dying a mysterious and violent death?

It couldn't be. Roy refused to believe Hohenheim had anything to do with this. Because really, if he did…

"What's the matter with you?" Sanders frowned at him.

Roy dropped the burnt-down cigarette, stamping it out with the toe of his boot. "Nothing."

If Hohenheim _was_ involved, Roy was in a great deal more trouble than he'd thought.


	3. Chapter 3

There was something wrong about being frightened of his own home. Roy was aching and tired and bordering on manic by the time he finished the walk from town to the house. He would have accepted a ride, had one been available, but walking through the streets of Resembool left him feeling like a pariah, just as he'd spent so long believing he _should_ be treated.

Somehow, though, reality wasn't lining up with his self-destructive fantasies.

Under the half-moon sky, the little house on top of the hill looked even more sinister. The front door, hanging crookedly on its hinges from an earlier abuse, cast a shadow down the walkway that resembled, in Roy's eyes, something like arms reaching out to him. He started up the hill, and it felt like walking into a fire.

"I should be used to this," he told himself, but the fear remained.

Closer to the door, barely three feet away, and he caught sight of something pinned to the wood, a piece of paper swaying back and forth in the gentle nighttime breeze. After a moment of hesitation, he grabbed it, ripping it from the tiny tack holding it in place, and read, _Dinner, this Friday night. I'm busy right through then, so don't try and push it sooner. P Rockbell._

The old woman? She'd been by after Roy had left?

With her earlier reluctance, bordering on outright hostility, Roy hadn't expected her to change her mind – at least not so quickly. But at the same time, there were three days to Friday, and part of him wondered if the Elric house would be quite kind enough to leave him alone until then – or even alive.

Roy shook his head, scowling at the direction his mind was turning. It was a house, for fuck's sake. The house wasn't the issue.

Closing the door behind him, he stood in the faint glow spilling out of the kitchen, imagining danger lurking within every shadow. No, it wasn't the house at all – it was whoever was _in_ the house that was the real cause.

If only he knew who his 'guest' was.

*

Three days was a long time to sit on one's hands. Roy was hardly able to sit in the house without thinking about it, without looking over his shoulder or wondering if that creak, that rush of wind was the sound of the alchemist returning.

Paranoia, he thought dismissively – and immediately closed the front door behind him.

Three days was _too_ long. He'd spent the night thinking of the Elric family. Most of them died in the very house he was living in – maybe even in the same room he slept? There was something haunting about it. As immune as he'd imagined himself to concern about death or suffering, the family's very existence affected Roy in a way he couldn't understand.

He wondered if Pinako felt the same.

Knowing how he must look, the dark bags dripping under his eyes, irritated red lines squirming outward from his irises, Roy rubbed at his face, desperate to kill the last remnants of a sleepless night as he made his way back into town.

He couldn't stand another three days of nothing but teasing hints, of feeling close to the truth but still fearing the unknown. Somewhere in Resembool laid the answer, and Roy would find it.

He'd cleaned himself up as well as he could, shaving and bathing and – honestly, it felt strange to see himself in the mirror, looking as put together as he had before.

Stranger still was the fact like that he _felt_ like he had before the war, calm and collected. It was a job, he told himself, making his way into town. It was a task put before him, and he'd always been good at getting the job done.

The townspeople he spoke to still seemed reluctant to give him time, but in speaking to them, he found them all rather easy to get along with.

Particularly, he noted with amusement, the women.

It was at the grocer's that he'd finally made some headway. The man he recalled working the counter the time he'd last been by had been nowhere in sight, replaced instead by a middle aged woman, her brown hair peppered with gray, and lines stretching from the corners of her eyes. She'd been startlingly pleasant to him and had, after a few moments of subtle probing, mentioned that there was only one school in the small town.

It was an offhand comment, a very innocuous one. She'd mentioned the teacher there, explaining that she'd been there for years.

"She's young, too," the woman had said, smiling mischievously. "I'm sure you'd get on well."

Roy had smiled, as charming as he could manage, and replied, "I'm certain we would."

One schoolhouse, he thought, and one teacher meant one person who might have known the children in the Elric house – who might even know where to find the one still living.

The afternoon was getting on. Roy wasted time in town until he noticed children in the streets, hurrying off somewhere. Home, most likely.

Class was out, then. Roy hurried to the school, a large building with one floor and one room. There were stragglers still in the spacious green just outside the building. As he passed them and walked into the front entrance, they stopped and stared.

Inside, a woman was sifting through a pile of papers, mumbling to herself as she tapped a pen against the tabletop.

"Ma'am?" he called out, knocking on the front door as he passed it.

The woman started and looked over, blinking rapidly. When she saw him, her hand went to her hair, patting down the frizzled bun before falling to the high collar of her dress.

"I was wondering if you had a moment, Ms…?" Roy raised a brow.

"Evelyn," she offered hesitantly, fingers toying with the lacy hem of her collar. "Evelyn Schoeller."

Roy extended a hand, relaxing with a surprising ease into the charming demeanor he'd once held steady on a permanent basis. "Roy Mustang. It's a pleasure to meet you," he said smoothly.

She had trouble holding his gaze, her freckled cheeks peppering a light pink as the hand at her neck dropped, slight fingers sliding into his own. "A pleasure," she echoed, and he could see the way he intimidated her in the obvious imitation of a city girl.

Clearly, the rumors of his raucous night at the bar hadn't reached her – or perhaps were simply ineffective against his personality. It made Roy wonder how much he had, if at all, changed over the last year.

"How can I help you, Mr. Mustang?" Evelyn asked, slipping her hand away to gesture toward a table in the back of the room. "Is this," her eyes flickered to him," about your child? I can't recall the name Mustang..."

Roy cracked a true smile at the lead-in. "No," he assured her, "no children. I just had a few questions about some of your ex-students, if you have the time?"

Her smile widened, and she took a seat behind the table, sliding the adjacent chair out with her foot, waving a hand. "Ask away," she said, her voice thick with that Eastern twang. "I'm always happy to talk about my kids."

Roy took a seat. "The Elric brothers," he began, and Evelyn blanched. "Is something the matter?" he asked, brows raised.

"No," she said, grabbing up a pencil from a container in the center of the table. Roy watched her fidget with it, twisting the thin stick in her hands as though using it to keep her grip on reality, to steady her mind. "I was just – surprised, is all. No one's brought up _those_ boys in some time."

"Call it a morbid curiosity," Roy said, careful to keep the eagerness from his expression. "You see, I've recently moved here—into the Elric family's old house." Evelyn let out a sigh, a cooing sound, and he saw her hand twitch as though to reach for his. "And I'm sure," he continued, "that you can imagine my surprise in learning of that family's fate."

A hand over her mouth, Evelyn said, "No one told you before? Not even when you'd made an offer for the house?"

"No one," Roy said solemnly, lying through his teeth.

"I wish I could tell you," she said. "I only know bits and pieces." She glanced at the door, worrying her lip. "The boys weren't in school for long. Just until – until their mother passed." Her voice dropped to a whisper with the last few words. "Trisha was so wonderful – some days, it's still hard to believe she's gone. We grew up together."

"You were close?"

Evelyn laughed. "It's Resembool," she said. "Most everyone living here now was born here. There's never been a whole lot of moving around."

"So everyone knows everyone," Roy guessed.

"I would say so," she agreed. "Trisha and I were in school together. I knew the boys before they came here, too, but as I said, they didn't stay long."

"Where did they go after she died?" Roy asked, then added casually, "To their father?"

Evelyn snorted a rather undignified noise. "Hohenheim? Please! No one even knows where he is! He didn't even show up for Trisha's funeral." She sounded disgusted. Roy didn't blame her. The more he heard about Hohenheim, the more he disliked the man. "No," she said, "the boys went off to the South somewhere." She pursed her lips, staring up at the ceiling until – "Dublith," she said quickly. "That's where it was! They went to study alchemy. I don't think Alphonse ever went anywhere else. Last I heard, anyway."

A shiver ran up Roy's spine. "Alchemy," he said. "Did they really?"

"I remember Trisha bragging about the boys." Evelyn's voice went soft, her eyes clouding over with memory. "She said they were their father's boys, especially Ed. He was the older boy, you know." Roy nodded. She continued wistfully, "They did have a talent for it. Used it to cause more trouble than anything else, though."

"Alchemy? They used it in school?" The boys must have been exceptionally talented, if they were transmuting at school age.

"All the time," she said. "Desks used to disappear, and there was more than one occasion of doors simply uprooting and ending up on the wrong side of the building!"

"Doors," Roy breathed, shaken, "uprooting?"

"The older bother's work, if I'm correct," she clarified. "Edward rarely found anything as amusing as the principal running into a wall trying to walk out a door that wasn't there."

Something squirmed uncomfortably in Roy's stomach. "How close were they to graduating, when they left?"

Evelyn stared, incredulous. "Graduating? Mr. Mustang, the boys didn't have twelve years of schooling between them! Edward made it halfway through the fourth grade before they disappeared. Alphonse was the year below."

"They sound awfully advanced," Roy said faintly.

Evelyn looked at her hands. "They were," she said with a hint of irony, "their father's sons."

Hohenheim might have left Resembool, Roy realized, but his legacy had stayed behind. Thinking of the moving doors and walls and windows in the Elric house, Roy excused himself from the school hurriedly, brushing off Evelyn's request for a lunch date.

Without realizing it, Roy had fallen headfirst into a family's mystery. Only now, he wasn't even remotely certain where it would take him.

Perhaps it was time to contact the only living Elric.

*

There was paper in the house, tucked away in a drawer, a parting gift from Mr. Collins. Roy had to dig through a drawer full of oddities, a ruler and a recent copy of the farmer's almanac, all sorts of things until he found a clean booklet of paper, a pen.

He settled himself just outside the house, casting a weary glance backward at it before turning his full attention to the paper.

Pen to the paper, Roy's mind went blank. What to say to the son of a family with such a dismal past? Should he feel guilty for trudging all those memories up again? Alphonse Elric couldn't be that old – perhaps fourteen? Roy didn't think he could justify dragging the boy back into whatever mess it was he'd escaped from. And yet, he couldn't keep himself from pressing his pen to the page, hunched over in the front yard and bearing down on some old cookbook or other, and writing, _To whom it may concern…_

He quickly crossed that out, scowling as he balled up the paper and pulled out a clean sheet. How did one go about inquiring into such a thing?

 _Dear Mr. Elric_

Did the boy even consider himself an Elric, still? After a brief moment of gnawing at the end of the pen, brows furrowed, he finally returned his pen to a third sheet, clean, and wrote:

 _Alphonse_

Simple, direct.

 _My name is Roy Mustang, and I'm writing you to inquire about the history of a house. Specifically, your family home. I recently purchased it, and_

And what? Roy thought snidely. I think it may be haunted? I think there's an alchemist stowing away in it, trying to kill me? Or worse – I think your father may have returned to Resembool?

Shaking his head in disgust, he continued:

 _and I have a few questions about several oddities I've noticed. If you would be so kind as to write me, I would be thrilled to have the chance to discuss this matter with you._

And, after a moment's hesitation:

 _I've enclosed the postage cost for a return letter._

It was short, but Roy figured being brief and to the point was the best way of handling the situation. Too much flowery prose might send the boy running.

The real issue was in getting the letter to the proper person. According to the boy's old teacher, he lived in Dublith, in South. Would he still be there?

Roy supposed he had as good a chance of finding Alphonse Elric there as he did anywhere else. He stuffed the letter into an envelope, addressing it simply to Alphonse Elric, Dublith, South.

He'd need to return to town to send it. After taking the long walk both ways already that day, Roy found himself too weary to do so again. It was something, he reasoned, to keep himself busy with on the next day.

Shaking off an unsettling feeling that he couldn't quite place, Roy returned inside, tucking the letter into his shirt pocket.

For the first time, he closed front door behind him, regretting his earlier treatment of the lock.

*

The following days passed by too slowly for Roy's liking. He'd gone to the post office to mail the letter, raising more than a few eyebrows at the vague address on the envelope. There hadn't been much else he could do.

The final day before his visit with the old woman, Roy had remained in his home and read, fighting off that same sense of unease.

Friday, just as the clock turned to four in the afternoon, the urge to get out became too much to resist. He quickly pulled on his coat, glanced in the mirror, and left the house, starting down the road, hands in his pockets.

There would be no easy way to ask the things he needed to ask. Roy knew he was intruding into something that no one in Resembool considered him a part of, but Pinako had to understand. She'd invited him, knowing what he was looking for. There could be no other reason for her change of heart.

"You certainly didn't waste any time in getting here." Pinako was the on porch, the very same place as the last time Roy saw her, tapping the ash from her pipe. "The sun's not even set yet."

"Punctuality," Roy said, smiling evenly. "It's important to a soldier."

"And you'd know all about _that_ ," the old woman muttered. "Well, come on, get in here. I have to get the stew on if we want to eat before morning." She left the door open and strolled back into the house, leaving Roy to follow on his own.

Pinako wasn't much of a hostess, Roy quickly found, though he was more inclined to believe that _he_ was the cause of her hostility.

"I was surprised to find your note," he said, standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He'd been in the house before, but the memory of it was vague, cloudy with his own stupidity. Standing there, he merely felt the awkwardness of a first time guest.

"I can change my mind sometimes." Pinako didn't look at him, intent on the large pot sitting atop the stove.

Roy finally gave in and took a seat at the table. "I've heard some interesting things about the house," he began, and Pinako scoffed loudly.

"Been snooping around, have you? Doesn't surprise me. Well, I don't think you'll find what you're looking for with those gossipmongers in town." Though her hand was steady on the spoon stirring the food, her voice held an angry tremor.

"I'd prefer to hear it all from you." He'd made it clear that he wanted to hear what she knew, had made it clear days ago.

"I don't know what to tell you," she said, tapping the spoon on the side of the pot and setting it aside. Reaching over, she turned up the burner beneath it and then took the seat opposite Roy. "There's a lot of history in this town."

"Who were the Elrics?" Roy asked, letting go of his fascination with Hohenheim for the first time. "The brothers, I mean."

Pinako folded her hands on the table, looking down. "I'd wondered if you'd heard about them."

"You were close to them?"

"My granddaughter," she said. "The three of them were glued together." She got up out of the chair, walking just outside the kitchen to grab something off the wall, a hanging frame. Back to the table, she took her seat and handed it to Roy. "That's them, my girl and her boys."

Three children, young and bright and happy – a girl with bright blond hair and smiling blue eyes, a boy on each arm: two similar faces, like both sides of a coin, a reluctant scowl on one boy and a brilliant grin on the other.

Roy cleared his throat and set the photograph aside. "Which one is which?"

"That one," Pinako reached out and tapped the boy to the right, the one with the easy grin, "that's Al. The other—"

"Edward," Roy said. "The older brother."

"That's him," Pinako said, her eyes taking on a soft, sad look.

"Where are they now?" Roy couldn't bring himself to look at the photo again. He'd never known them, but seeing the children in that carefree moment while knowing what their future held – it was somewhat painful, even for him. "Alphonse and your granddaughter."

"Winry," Pinako said fondly. "She's in Rush Valley, working on an apprenticeship. She's going to be the best automail mechanic in Amestris, that girl."

"And the boy?" Roy persisted.

Pinako seemed hesitant. "Al is with his teacher. In South."

"Teacher?"

"The woman who taught him alchemy. Him and Ed."

On the stove, the pot let out a great bubbling of steam. Pinako shuffled out of her chair and grabbed the spoon, tapping it off on the counter before giving the contents a few quick stirs, sniffing loudly. "'bout ready," Roy heard her mumble. She shut off the gas, the flames beneath the pot flickering out. "Hungry?" she asked.

No, Roy wanted say. He wanted to demand she return to the table and tell him the story, everything she knew about the Elrics and their house and the one boy who managed to live.

Instead, he smiled and said, "Yes. Thank you."

It was an unnecessary break. He could tell the old woman was stalling, the worrying lines in her face deepening as she ladled out the stew. He wondered what she was thinking, if she was trying to convince herself that it was all right to tell an outsider.

He wondered just why everyone he'd spoken to was so reticent about the Elrics.

"May I help?" he asked, falling back on that old charm. Pinako was apparently immune, because she gave him a withering look and dropped a bowl in front of him, the stew sloshing and spraying out onto the table.

"I think I can manage, young man," she said flatly, and took a seat.

They ate in silence. Roy would look up every so often just to see the old woman eating with a look of such fierce concentration that he couldn't bring himself to speak. Why had she invited him, if she hadn't planned on so much as looking at him?

But no, he thought. Everything had been fine until he'd begun asking about the brothers. She knew something. She had to – and Roy would get it out of her.

He cleared his throat and let the spoon rest in his bowl. "You were saying," he began, "about the boys' teacher? The woman in South?"

Pinako swallowed loudly, laying her spoon to rest on the table. "Can't say I know her name. She's in Dublith."

"With Alphonse," Roy persisted.

"With Al," she agreed. "Mustang, I have to say. I can't figure out why you're so interested in this."

"I live in their house," Roy began, but she cut him off.

"No, you live in _your_ house. What happened to that family—" Her mouth clicked shut, and she looked off to the sound, voice dropping with anger. "It's not for some outsider's entertainment. It's nothing but a tragedy, and I'm not going to sit here and let you go poking around—"

"You have the wrong impression," Roy said. "I'm only looking to understand."

"Understand what?" she asked, and Roy just – stopped.

What could he say? Understand the house? No, that wouldn't make sense, not to someone who hadn't been there. The story, the family, the million little what-if's dancing around his mind. He wanted to know what he'd spent his time with, what presence lingered there beside him. He wanted to know why he was terrified of closing his eyes, why he couldn't help but feel he wasn't entirely alone.

More than anything, he wanted to know that this wasn't something he'd created.

"There's been," he hesitated, looking for the right words. "Have you ever been there?"

"Obviously," Pinako said.

"Inside," Roy clarified. "Since – since whatever happened, happened?"

She went quiet. "What exactly are you asking?"

"If you've been," he said, "then you must know. There's," he was going to sound crazy, out of his mind, but he had to know – "Do you ever get the feeling, that there's simply something wrong with it?"

"No," she said, "but I think there's something wrong with _you_."

Roy's heart sank.

"Mustang, I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are. And I didn't invite you here so you could pick my brain about the Elrics." She was looking at him so intensely. "I think you need some help. More than _some_."

"I think I should leave," Roy said, but she held up a hand.

"Hear me out," she argued. "I know a troubled person when I see one, and I won't make the mistake of keeping my mouth closed again." Before Roy had the time to wonder what she meant, she was trudging on: "I understand that you've – well, war's never good."

Obviously. Roy didn't need a civilian to tell him _that_.

"But you need to let this go," she continued. "You're—I've lost people, too."

"Have you," he said, bitter. This wasn't what he was here for. He didn't need to hear this –

"My son and his wife," she said. "During—during Ishbal. They were doctors."

Roy's blood stopped, ice creeping through his veins. "Doctors."

"Urey Rockbell," she said. "That was my boy. He and his wife – I got a letter in the mail saying they'd got caught up in an uprising." She looked down. "Never did hear anything else."

Rockbell – the doctors. Roy suddenly knew with crystal clarity just why the name Rockbell had sounded familiar.

He stood up.

"What – where are you going?" Pinako demanded. But he was already out of the kitchen, to the front door, and her feet slapping against the ground behind him wasn't going to keep him there, not with her, not with that memory –

The clothes she'd given him, he realized then, had likely belonged to the man he'd killed in cold blood.

Roy reached where the grass ended in a dirt road and spewed his dinner all over the ground.

The Rockbells, the _Rockbells_. The memory went soaring through Roy's mind, lighting every nerve in his body. Running to the house on the hill was standing in that gory, makeshift hospital, a gun in his hand, his commanding officer at his back –

The Rockbells, the doctors, his worst sin. He'd come to Resembool to escape the past, and it still found him. It would chase him until the day he died, Roy knew.

Busting in the front door, everything seemed to go still. From his pocket, he pulled the ignition gloves, an idea forming, pushing upward though his chaotic thoughts.

It would chase him until he died. Roy decided he wouldn't give it the chance.

To hell with the house. To hell with the Elrics and Hohenheim and Resembool and every goddamn face on the planet, to _hell_ with them. He wasn't doing this, not anymore.

A sudden calm descended upon Roy. His gloves were on his hands, the rough material familiar, a spark of warmth in a dismal void. The answer was clear.

The living room was different than it had been that morning. It was always different. Roy felt, for the first time, not a single iota of alarm. It didn't matter who might or might not be in the house with them, because shortly, there would be no house.

He raised his fingers, his mind blank, at ease –

And the room around him exploded with a fury he'd never seen in the unpredictable house before. The walls and the floor literally wavered, shaking and vibrating, the windows flapping open and closed and open and closed uncontrollably, the curtains whipping out at him from the force of the air spewing in the windows' wake.

The chaos rolled over him, wiping the fog of stoic determination from his mind as quickly as it had come, panic slithering its way through his body, coiling tightly around his mind until Roy couldn't think beyond, _get out, get out, get out!_

There was a voice beneath the rush of sound, the erratic movements, that child's voice, speaking as though from far away, "You stupid fuck, what are you doing—"

But Roy wouldn't, _couldn't_ , listen to it, couldn't stop and think and process, because the house was coming alive around him.

He had to get out. Had to, had to, had to –

But the doors were gone, faded away in the midst of the shift and stir of the wood; the walls, and the windows were hardly an option, the movements too erratic, impossible to stop. Roy dove beneath a column that sprang out from the wall like a fist and darted into the kitchen. He raised his hand, no longer with the thought of ending his own life, but of escaping. Focusing in on the wall, the one he knew to lead to the front of the house, to the outside, Roy moved to snap –

The cupboard door swung open violently, striking him in the face, the world narrowing to a sharp pain – and then nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

Sunlight was the first thing Roy registered upon waking as he pulled his face away from the hard, cold floor. Sunlight meant windows, and he'd been rather sure that there hadn't been any of _those_ the night before.

His entire body ached, and when he reached a hand to his face, touching it to the tender knot on the bridge of his nose, he felt blood. It was caked under his nostrils and lower, along the corner of his mouth. His face felt swollen, like he'd been punched.

The cupboard, he remembered. The house going mad around him – his gloves, the doctors, Pinako's words…

Fear could feel so physical sometimes, so heavy. To Roy, it was a weight on his back, keeping his chest pressed to the floor, his neck craning up uncomfortably, swiveling his head around to try to see something, anything, that would explain what the fuck that had been all about.

There was nothing. It looked almost as if he was in an entirely new house. There were windows where there'd been none, the panes of glass replacing the front door, which seemed to be on the far side of the kitchen, now. He supposed that, were he to stand, the living room would be different as well. The only bit of familiarity was in the wall shelf, directly across from the kitchen doorway. It appeared to be the only thing that had remained where it was meant to be.

No word was powerful enough to describe this feeling, the terror coursing through him. He had to get out of there.

The second thing that his mind registered was that the phone was ringing.

Roy couldn't recall a single time that he'd used it – stranger still, he couldn't recall where he'd seen it last.

The ringing was insistent. It would go on and on, then stop, only to start again a few moments later. Roy lay still, listening, until he found the will to drag himself over to the kitchen wall and pull himself up.

Standing, he looked around for the sound. The phone was on the far wall of the kitchen, the area where it met the walls covered in strange, faded ripples, the trademark sign of a recent, hastily done transmutation. Trying to ignore the tremors running through his body, Roy walked cautiously to the phone, grabbing the receiver.

"Hello?" The word stuck to his tongue, his mouth dry.

" _Mustang?_ " Pinako's voice crackled from the other end of line. " _What on earth happened last night?_ "

Roy's stomach flopped at the sound of her voice. He still couldn't speak to her, not without remembering. Willing his lips to part, his mouth to function, he stammered, "I don't know what you mean. I have to go—"

" _Wait_ ," she said. " _Just—just hold on a minute._ "

From somewhere outside the kitchen, Roy heard a now sickeningly familiar sound: wood twisting, changing, creaking into something new.

"No," he said. "I have to go, I have to _go_ —"

" _What the hell is wrong with you?_ " the old woman demanded. " _I can't help you if_ —"

But Roy would never hear that 'if'. The crackling on the phone line picked up until Pinako's voice was lost. Just as Roy was about to hang up, the static died, the line going silent.

And then a voice spoke, clear as day: " _What the fuck IS wrong with you, the fuck are doing_ —"

Roy slammed the phone down, heart stuttering in his chest.

It was the same voice, that eerie child-like tone.

He didn't stop and wonder. He didn't bother investigating. Roy Mustang, blood and bruises and last night's clothes and his gloves and all, walked very slowly, very calmly, to where the new door was, and he walked outside.

Nothing could make him stay in that house, not for another second.

Pinako met him halfway between his house and hers. She drove slowly, looking out the window as he walked down the road. When he didn't stop immediately, she called out to him: "Mustang! Get over here!"

He was tempted to keep walking, to pass her by and move on, right until the moment his feet couldn't carry him any further. He didn't, though. Roy slowed his pace, stopping when she pulled the car right up next to him on the road. Pinako leaned over and scowled at him through the opened window. She was about to say something, he could tell, but her face went from angry to concerned in three seconds flat.

"What?" he asked, his voice a croak.

"What happened?" She peered intently at him. "You get into a fight?"

Roy scowled and then winced as a sharp pain made itself known. Apparently, attempting control over his facial features was a bit beyond him. "No."

"Get in the car."

In the car? With her? Roy, knowing she wouldn't have asked if only she'd known, took a step back. "I'm fine."

"You're lying. Come on."

The car was stopped, the engine silent. If he walked away, there was nothing she could do. Roy had a difficult time imagining the little old woman chasing after him, on foot or otherwise. If he left, that would be that.

It made very little sense, then, that his hand was on the door, that he was opening it and climbing into the car.

"You're a mess," Pinako grumbled, restarting the car. The engine jerked to life, and she made an abrupt turn in the middle of the road.

Roy said nothing.

"Is this about," she paused, and Roy could clearly hear the guilt in her words, "what I said?" There was reluctance in her tone. He could easily see that she wasn't about to take it back, any of it.

"No," he said honestly.

"Then what?"

There was nothing to say. Except, perhaps, what he'd intended to say the night before: "Have you ever felt there was something wrong with the Elrics' house?"

"Why do you keep asking that?"

Roy looked out the window. "It tried to kill me," he said, understanding just how the words made him sound.

"The house tried to kill you?" Pinako echoed, brows shooting up to her hairline. "You been drinking again?"

"You asked what happened," Roy snapped. "I deserve to know—"

"About what?" Pinako asked. "Why do you deserve to hear about them? What business is it of yours?" They were pulling up to the house. Pinako drove the car into the front yard and put it into park, shutting the engine off. "Come inside," she said, quiet. "Let’s see if I can't fix your face."

Roy, not knowing what else to say, simply followed her.

*

She'd rushed off to retrieve a first aid kit, gesturing for him to take a seat at the kitchen table. He'd taken one look at it, and the night before came rushing back.

He wouldn't listen to that conversation, not again. Roy went in the opposite direction and sat down on an old couch, the springs groaning beneath his weight.

When she returned, she popped her head into the sitting room, frowning. "That's not where I told you to wait," she said, dropping the kit on the coffee table anyway. "All right, where's the worst of it?"

"Here." Roy gestured at his face.

"Looks the worst," she agreed, an inappropriate hint of humor in her words. "What got you?"

"Cupboard door," Roy said dully. Why she bothered asking, if she refused to believe, was beyond him.

Pinako paused in dabbing alcohol onto a piece of cotton. "You walked into a cupboard door?" she asked, incredulous. "I thought you said you _weren't_ drinking?"

"I wasn't," Roy snapped. "It was the house!"

"The house." She swiped at the jagged tear on his bottom lip, and Roy jumped at the stinging sensation. "You're telling me that a house assaulted you."

"I think it was an alchemist, actually," Roy said. "There have been – incidents."

"This is ridiculous," Pinako said, but something shifted in her eyes at the mention of alchemy. "What alchemist could possibly be there?"

"I don't know," Roy said, honest. "I was hoping to speak with the boy about it – Alphonse."

"I doubt he'd want to hear anything you'd have to say," Pinako said shortly, dropping the cotton and grabbing up a fresh piece, eying his nose critically. "Don't think you'll need any stitches, but the blood's caked pretty good. This is going to hurt."

 _Hurt_ was putting it mildly. When she rubbed the alcohol on, it felt like she was trying to rub the skin off his nose. Sucking in a harsh breath, Roy went rigid, trying to remain still, his eyes watering against his will.

"I was hoping," he said, teeth clenched, "that he might be able to make sense of—" a harsh breath, a stuttered curse, "the things that have been happening." When Pinako removed the cotton again, dropping it and picking up a tube of ointment, Roy sagged with relief.

"I don't know what to tell you, Mustang," she said, applying the ointment with gentle fingers that belied her harsh personality. "I don't think that boy'll look twice at you. He has enough on his plate."

"You can't help me, can you?"

Pinako dropped the tube, letting out a long, sad sigh. "I can't do much of anything, these days."

"I can't explain this to you," Roy said, "not in a way that will make any sense." Not since she already thought him insane. "But Alphonse, he was an alchemist. He might know—"

"How about I let you in on something," Pinako interrupted. "What do you know about Ed?"

"Ed?" Roy looked surprised. "I – nothing. He's dead."

"How?"

"How did he die? I—" Roy blinked. "I don't know. Why?"

"Alchemy killed him," Pinako said, and Roy felt a chill creep up his spine. "In that house. Al wouldn't come back for anything. And if you think he'll even stop to talk about that…"

"I have to speak with him," Roy said. "I don't have any other option."

"It won't do you any good," Pinako insisted. "But… He's in Dublith. Everyone knows that."

"Then I'll go to Dublith."

"Mustang, don't you make life harder for that boy than it already is," Pinako warned. "There are people who would see to it that you'd regret it."

"I understand."

She watched him for a long moment and then shook her head. "I just don't understand," she murmured, then, much louder, "I'll go put some tea on. That ointment needs to sit and not be messed with. You can leave once it's dried."

When she left, Roy settled back into the couch. She didn't believe him, that much was clear, but still… She didn't say _not_ to go to Dublith, and even if she had, well.

At that point, Roy knew there weren't any other options.

*

The walk to town and back was a tiring one, especially with the news he'd received from the train station. The next train to South wouldn't pass through town for two days.

Roy didn't _have_ two days, not the way things felt in that house.

He felt stuck. Stuck in Resembool, stuck in the house, stuck with his fear.

It was surreal. He'd been looking for an escape when he'd come to the town. Signing the deed to the house and shaking the realtor's hand – it had felt like success, however an insignificant amount. That it should turn out in such a way left Roy reeling.

Two days, and he had nowhere to go.

Pinako would let him stay with her, of course. He couldn't see the old woman, with that strange guilt weighing her down, refusing him, not when she believed him so in-need. But at the same time, he couldn't stand her disbelief, her inability to see what was happening. She thought him insane, and for the first time in a long time, Roy wanted the respect he'd had in the military, the quick compliance of those around him.

His team would have known what to do.

Tucking the train ticket into his pocket, Roy trudged up the hill. The front door of the house was closed, something he'd not done on his own. For that matter, it was in a completely different place, sitting directly where the windows facing out of the far wall of the kitchen should have been.

Two days of never knowing what it would do, of what the hell _it_ even was, would drive Roy mad. No, he thought, walking until he was one footstep outside the front door. He wouldn't sit idle for those days, watching over his shoulder and refusing to sleep. He would find something, anything, to show the Elric boy. He would prove that this was beyond his own mind.

It was real, the house and whatever was in it. He would find a way to make Alphonse Elric acknowledge that.

*

There was something soothing about falling back onto his experience as a State Alchemist. Roy had spent years in the position, climbing up in rank as he went from investigating small alchemical incidents to major crimes. He knew the signs of a recent transmutation, could tell the difference between skill and pure clumsiness.

The house, interestingly enough, was full of both. It was as though whatever alchemist had been behind all the chaos would slip on occasion, reverting back to old habits, those early mistakes in the days where drawing a circle was just as difficult as performing the transmutation itself.

Kneeling in the entryway, Roy ran his hands along the wall where the door should have been, where the house was meant to open onto the front steps. The wall was covered in strange, ridged areas, as if something was just beneath the surface – like a kind of molding gone wrong. It was the mark of an amateur, but Roy knew from firsthand experience that no amateur could have done what he'd seen.

The contradictions were maddening, just as much as the house itself was.

The vast majority of the walls were covered in the marks, littering them in formless patches. He couldn't find a single area that _wasn't_ affected. The alchemist was, if nothing else, very thorough.

Or so he thought before remembering the wall shelf.

He could distinctly recall lying on the floor and staring at the shelf. Why it should stay in place, he hadn't thought to consider.

The wall shelf was, quite simply, a bookshelf built directly into the wall. The back of it wasn't actually part of the wall, being of a much darker shade of wood, but it was definitely attached. When Roy tried to push it aside, he could feel through the tension just where the nails held it fast – assuming it was held with nails, at all.

With that house, there was no telling.

Roy put an ear to the wall and knocked, two hard raps. It sounded hollow, the area behind it empty. With a start, he realized that there was something behind the shelf – a room?

The alchemist's room?

He had his gloves, Roy reasoned. Whatever the alchemist was capable of, he was quite certain he could match them. Anxiety clutching tight to his heart, Roy went back to the kitchen, to the drawer, and retrieved a pen.

On the wall, he drew a small circle and pressed his hands to it. The wood shifted immediately, an entryway opening up in the form of an arch, plenty of room for him to walk in.

He'd been right. It was a room, though clearly one that hadn't been touched in some time. There was a desk opposite the wall, and a large bookshelf adjacent to it, both covered in a heavy blanket of dust. The chair seated at the desk was pulled out just so, like someone had been in the act of taking a seat and left suddenly, forgetting about it altogether.

Roy stepped in cautiously. There was no one in the room, but the moment he set foot inside, he could feel a strange presence, a foreboding sensation. Above him, the wooden beams were visible, rotten and spilling sawdust to the ground. Every step he took kicked it up, his eyes itching and watering. Coughing into his hand, Roy stopped, looked around.

When he turned, more dust from the floor kicked up, uncovering something – a portion of some scrawled symbol in a fast-browning ink. He realized, his heart thumping in his chest, that it was a transmutation circle.

A very complicated, painfully familiar circle.

Roy's legs shook as he crouched down to get a better look. It was the same, absolutely the same. He could recall with startling clarity those dark months after the first massacre, of poring over books and creating the thing he hoped would absolve him of his sins. Human transmutation, Roy thought, reaching a hand out. Maes had stopped him, had beaten sense into his old friend, but Roy had the feeling that whoever had drawn _this_ circle hadn't been so fortunate.

Just as his hand neared the edge of the circle, the dust around it began to stir unnaturally, big bold words, as though written by a child, covering the circle. He froze.

ROY MUSTANG, the writing said, the words appearing rapidly, IS A PEABRAINED LOSER.

The beams above him shuddered in warning, but Roy couldn't bring himself to move, to look away from his name, scrawled in that juvenile writing.

"What…" His throat felt thick, his entire body thrumming with adrenalin, with some unknown threat. "Who's there?" he asked, the words finally breaking through the fog wrapped thick around his mind. He should stand, he should move, he should be fucking looking for the person responsible –

The words abruptly vanished, the dust stirring angrily into something even more familiar.

Another circle.

Roy didn't have the time to react, didn't even have the time to register his surprise as a giant fist appeared from the ground and slammed into his chest, knocking him straight back out of the hidden room and onto his ass in the hallway of the house. He barely managed to avoid thumping his head painfully against the ground as he caught himself, but by the time he'd stumbled to his feet, fear giving way to fury, the doorway was gone, the wood crackling with alchemical energy.

And again, that voice. "You don't belong here," it hissed, just as the doorway sealed shut.

Roy, stunned, could only think, _No, I really don't._

*

The train ride to Dublith lasted the entirety of a day. Roy had been at the platform a full hour before the train arrived, straight off two days of fear, frustration, and restlessness. The moment his back hit the seat, his eyes closed. He slept fitfully, waking every so often from a jerk of the train or the sound of another passenger stomping by his compartment.

When he heard the whistle, the train began to slow, the wheels screeching their reluctance. Roy looked out the window, unable to tear his eyes away from the small city. Dublith wasn't anything special. It wasn't much bigger than Resembool, in fact. It was certainly more colorful, though. Everything about South, he remembered, was.

If he was fortunate, Dublith would share Resembool's close-knit community. If everyone knew everyone, then it would be much easier to find the boy.

Off the train, Roy stood on the platform, feeling lost. He could ask anyone. It would make no difference. Feeling an odd squeeze of his stomach, Roy stepped straight out of the train station and onto the streets. He looked to be in the residential area of town, little shops lining the roads, people all around. It was noon, the sun high in the sky, and the people of Dublith all seemed to be out at one time, given the congestion in the streets.

Roy worked his way through a crowd, over to a fruit stand stationed on the side of the road. He bought an apple, his mind reminding him of equivalent exchange, and then said to the elderly man working the stand, "I was wondering if you might know someone?"

The old man set about putting Roy's money in a safe box, sparing him a single glance. "Who might that be?"

"Alphonse Elric," Roy said.

The man looked thoughtful. "Al lives down the road," he said, and Roy's heart jumped.

"Would you mind telling me where?" Roy looked around. "I need to speak to him."

A suspicious look, then the man snorted. "He's at work right now. The Curtis butcher shop. Just down the road thataway, on the left. Can't miss it."

It would have been very difficult to miss, Roy quickly realized. The butcher shop was large, two stories, and rather obviously doubled as a home. With trepidation, he stepped up to the door and knocked.

A woman answered. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm looking for Alphonse Elric," Roy said. The woman stared at him, suspicion growing on her face.

"Who're you?"

Her rudeness surprised Roy. "Roy Mustang," he said. "I recently—"

"Al's not here," she said sharply, cutting him off.

Uneasy, Roy tried again. "It's important," he explained. "Do you know where I could find him?"

"He's not here," the woman said again, louder, and leaned forward, eyes sharp. "And don't think I don't know who you are."

"Who am I?" Roy asked, fury budding in his mind. What the hell was wrong with her?

"A State Alchemist," she said, disgusted. "I've seen your picture around, and whatever you think you want with Al—"

"I'm not with the state," Roy said quietly. "Not anymore."

"What's going on?"

Roy turned around at the voice, and the woman looking over his shoulder. It was Alphonse Elric, had to be. The boy looked quite different than the picture Pinako had showed him, of course, a few years having passed. He was taller, the top of his head reaching just to the bottom of Roy's ear, his hair a dark blond, chopped short, sticking up unevenly. The warm smile Roy had seen in the photo was gone, replace by a guarded look. His eyes left him with the appearance of a man much older.

And then, there were his limbs.

Roy's eyes were drawn to them – an automail leg and arm. Alphonse was wearing shorts that stopped just at his knee, and below the cut of the fabric, his left leg was entirely metal. His right arm glinted in the sunlight where his long sleeve ended too soon before the white gloves he wore.

Before the woman could interrupt, Roy said, "Alphonse Elric?"

Al watched him quietly before inclining his head. "I am."

"My name is Roy Mustang," Roy offered. "I sent a letter a few days back, but—"

"You're the one living in that house," Al interrupted, his tone going flat. "I don't have any reason to talk to you."

What little hope Roy'd had shriveled. "It's important," he asserted. "Your house is—"

"It isn't _my house_ ," Al said sharply. "It's yours. Whatever's wrong, I don't have anything to do with it."

He pushed by Roy, and Izumi stepped back to let him inside. Roy reached out and caught the boy's sleeve, desperate.

"You have to listen," he said.

Al shook him off. "I don't have to do anything!"

The woman looked about ready to intervene, so Roy blurted, "Your house is trying to kill me!"

Al stared, and the woman froze behind him. "The house is trying to kill you," Al echoed, incredulous. "Are you mad?"

"No," Roy said, scowling. "I know this sounds – _ridiculous_ , and I know this is none of my concern, but I think it has something to do with your family."

Emotion bled from Al's face, and he turned away. "Get out of here."

"I found a circle," Roy said, desperate to keep Al's attention. "In a room, a hidden one. It looked like a – a study of some sort, and the dust—"

Al started violently at that. He mouthed something, the word lost to Roy.

Feeling a bit more confident, Roy continued. "I think it might be something left over by your father," he said. "It was – I've never seen alchemy like that. And on the floor, I saw," he lowered his voice, reluctant to even speak the words, "a circle intended for human transmutation."

"That's enough!" The woman shoved Al in the house, giving Roy a look that would have sent a lesser man running. "If I catch you around here again," she said, "I will make certain you regret it," and slammed the door.

*

Conflicted, Roy made the decision to stay in town for the night. Another train was leaving in the morning. If he woke early enough, he'd have time to try to convince the boy once more before he left.

Roy couldn't bring himself to feel hopeful.

 _Don't think I don't know who you are_ , the woman had said. She'd hated him the moment she'd heard his name, and Roy couldn't even feel wronged for that.

The room he'd rented for the night was tiny, giving him barely enough room to take five steps in any direction. The bed itself seemed to make up the majority of the room. Frustrated, Roy collapsed onto it, slinging an arm over his eyes. He wondered, briefly, if there'd even been a point in coming to Dublith.

Alphonse _did_ react though. From the hostility to his stark expression when he heard about the circle, the boy seemed to have some notion as to what Roy had discovered. It brought him some hope, if only a tiny fraction, that there would be a solution.

And really, it was just nice knowing that it wasn't all in his head.

Roy slept fitfully that night, jumping from dream to unpleasant dream. When the little alarm, an accessory of the room, chimed six in the morning as loudly as it could, Roy was torn from a dream of Central up in flames, and Gracia Hughes yelling at him in that woman's voice, _and if I catch you around here again_ –

Shaking the thought from his mind, Roy rolled himself out of bed and went straight for the shower.

Gathering his single bag, he had the room paid for within half an hour of waking up. Roy stepped out into the streets, his stomach churning from a breakfast too heavy for his level of stress. By the time Curtis Butcher Shop came into view down the road, that churning had morphed into an acute queasiness.

That woman had been quite clear in that she wouldn't allow Roy anywhere near Alphonse again, and he had very little doubt that she would do everything in her power to refuse him if he bothered to knock on the door.

Though how she would make him regret it, Roy couldn't begin to guess.

Pulling his watch from his pocket, Roy flicked open the lid. It was a quarter before seven, leaving him plenty of time before the train began boarding passengers. If he was lucky, Al would come to him.

Ten minutes later, Roy was surprised at just how lucky he was.

"I know," Alphonse said, backing out the front door with a large box in his arms. "Three streets down, ma'am. I'll be back soon!"

Roy could hear the woman answering him but not clearly enough to make out the words. Instead, he turned his attention to the boy as he walked down the path. It was like night and day, the difference between Alphonse Elric of the previous day and the Alphonse Elric now walking briskly down the street. He looked calm, content. That guarded shadow was gone. Guilt sparked in Roy's gut, but he quickly stamped it down. There was a job to be done, and he couldn't afford to lose focus.

With a wary look at the front of the shop, Roy walked by, keeping his head down and followed Alphonse as he cut through a small break in the streets between two buildings. If he caught him there alone, the boy would have to speak to him.

Swallowing against the unsettling feeling in his gut, Roy cupped his hands to his mouth and called ahead, "Alphonse!"

The boy stopped on reflex, turning around with a puzzled look on his face. Roy took the opportunity to jog ahead, catching up with him. The moment the boy got a look at just who was calling him, that pleasant expression grew sharp, suspicious. He took a step back, and Roy held up his hands.

"Please," Roy said, approaching slowly. "Just hear me out."

Alphonse gripped the box in his arms tighter, looking very much like he'd rather run. But he stood still, inclining his head just so.

Roy, relieved, put down his hands. "I know this is strange. I know you don't want to be bothered—"

"Then why bother me?" Alphonse asked, his voice cracking at the last syllable, caught in some awkward place between boy and man. "I don't want anything to do with you."

"Or the house?" Roy guessed. "You know about the circle, don't you? About the room behind the wall?"

Alphonse said nothing.

"Some nights," Roy's voice quavered, "I hear someone – like a little boy. It's like he's crying." He watched Alphonse, the boy's face going utterly blank with each word. "Who is it?"

"Your hallucinations aren't my problem," Alphonse said, but something in his tone didn't match up with his words. There was nothing behind it, no rage, no disbelief. If anything, he sounded tired.

"What is it?" Roy tried again. "There's someone – or something – in that house, and you know damn well what I mean."

Alphonse refused to look at him, instead choosing to glare at the brick wall to his right.

"The circle," Roy said finally, reaching the heart of the matter. "It was for human transmutation. You know about that, too, don't you?" And, with a tremor in his voice, the horrifying possibilities leaving Roy ill, "Whose blood was it?"

Alphonse snapped. "I don't know anything about any of that," he spat. "I told you before. I have nothing to say to you! Whatever you think is happening—"

"I live there," Roy said, "it's my house, and I can't sleep for thinking something's going to _kill_ me—"

"Then leave!" Alphonse roared, gripping the box so tight that the wood of the crate splintered beneath his automail hand. "You're the one choosing to be there!" The words drained from him, the alleyway went silent. The only noise was the sound of Alphonse's harsh breathing.

"You won't help me," Roy said. It wasn't a question. He already knew the answer.

Alphonse turned away. "Don't come back," he said tersely.

When Alphonse disappeared down the other side of the alley, fading into the streets beyond, Roy felt his last bit of hope vanish along with the boy. It seemed, for now, that he would have to discover the truth on his own.

Feeling bereft, Roy turned back the way he came. He had a train to catch.


	5. Chapter 5

The return trip dragged, feeling ten times longer than the ride to Dublith. Roy couldn't lose the hours in sleep and couldn't read whatever newspapers the train provided. He'd taken one look at the front page of the _Eastern Quarterly_ , saw Fuhrer Bradley's picture beneath the headline LIORE PURGED – REBELS DEFEATED: PLANS FOR NEW MILITARY BASE RELEASED, and hadn’t been able to close his eyes without seeing the whole ordeal as if he was reliving it in that moment, his men at his side, fire before him –

It was a very, very long train ride.

He hadn't expected to be as grateful as he was to see Resembool out the window, but the moment the station rolled into view, Roy's body sagged with relief. He might have to return to that house, but at least he'd be distracted. It was something one learned early as a soldier – fear was the key to focus.

With that in mind, Roy disembarked, suitcase in hand, and began the walk home.

As Alphonse Elric was out of the picture, Roy was left to deal with the house on his own. The more he thought about it, the more he felt he was overlooking something, some small piece that would clear the bigger picture. The circle on the floor, drawn in blood; Edward Elric's death by some unknown work of alchemy; the final Elric, left with only two limbs and an inability to speak of his family home. What was the cause?

And what could make a house, an inanimate object, seem so _alive_?

Had he been a different man, Roy might have jumped to a conclusion. The house could very well have been haunted. The voice, the way it arranged itself around him – but Roy refused to believe in that. Not knowing, however frustrating it was, was still better than being wrong.

The thing Roy found himself the most curious about was how human transmutation fit in to the equation. Was that the act of alchemy that had killed the elder brother? It would explain Al's staunch refusal to give Roy the time of day. The woman he'd been living with had recognized him as a State Alchemist. What person in their right mind would admit to an involvement in something that warranted the death penalty? And to a member of the State, at that?

His mind couldn't seem to decide. He found himself flickering back to the idea of ghosts, of an otherworldly presence, but no matter how he reminded himself of that circle, of the hidden room and the clear markings of recent transmutations, Roy couldn't separate himself from the idea that there was something in the house that simply did not belong.

Roy had gotten to the point where he was forced to acknowledge that there was no alchemist. Some other force was at work in the house, something he had yet to fully understand. He thought of the voice he'd heard, that of a young boy. He thought of the Elrics and all that they'd lost, of the boys' teacher remarking on their alchemical talents. He thought of Alphonse and his mechanical limbs, of the brother no one seemed willing to discuss.

What if the one responsible had been with him all along?

It was time for an experiment, he decided.

The house was in order. The front door was where it should be, and the windows were once again facing outward from the kitchen. It was difficult to reconcile his terror with the innocuous little house before him, but Roy knew, as he opened the front door, that he could not rely on appearances alone.

He set his suitcase down and closed the door behind him.

The wall shelf was back where it had been before he'd discovered the room. Roy stood in front of it and, feeling foolish, closed his eyes. It couldn't hurt, he reasoned. There was no one hear to him, no one but himself and the walls around him.

If he was fortunate, there would be no response.

"I know you're there," Roy said, pleased with how firm his voice sounded, "Edward Elric."

His words were followed by a blessed silence. Roy wanted to sink to the ground, never more relieved to be wrong, but before he could heave a single sigh, a voice emanated through the wall before him:

"How'd you know?" it said, that eerie child's voice sounding something close to petulant. "How'd you know my name?"

Roy's heart slammed to a halt so fast his knees buckled.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you!"

Edward Elric wasn't killed in that house, Roy realized numbly. Edward Elric had simply become a part of it – though in what way, Roy couldn't hazard a guess.

"Why'd you say my name if you weren't gonna talk?" Edward demanded fiercely.

Roy, pushing a hand over his eyes, leaned against the wall. "Edward Elric," he said again, swallowing.

A moment of silence, then, "Ed," the house – boy – corrected him. "Edward sounds stupid an' stuffy."

Roy nearly laughed. There he was, standing in the alchemical equivalent of a haunted house, having a conversation with the leftover parts of a pre-pubescent boy.

Life had always been strange, but this was beyond anything Roy had ever experienced, beyond his own comprehension. He needed context, needed the finer details before he could make any decisions.

He needed his alchemy texts.

Roy knew right where they were, stuffed in the trunk up in the bedroom. He hadn't touched them in so long, but he knew immediately which ones he needed to consult – those darker volumes, the ones he'd purchased after Ishbal with every intention of using, for a short time.

They would be at the bottom of the trunk.

"Where you goin' now?" Ed asked as Roy walked to the stairs, heading up to the bedroom. "What, that's it? That's all? You've been here so long," the boy lamented, "and now you just won't talk?"

"The – I need look at something," Roy said, his voice colored with disbelief. Ed might have been a boy at one point in time, but for the moment, he was a house. Roy was speaking to a _house_.

"Oh," Ed said. "I guess."

But that didn't stop the boy. Ed's chattering followed Roy up the stairs, into the bedroom. Even as he knelt on the ground and flipped open the trunk, tossing books and assorted oddities out, he could hear Ed's voice over every _thunk_ of something hitting the ground.

It occurred to Roy that if Ed decided to talk, there wasn't likely anywhere in the house he could go to escape the boy – not when he was literally walking around inside him.

The thought leaving him cold, Roy pulled out a particularly malevolent looking tome, bound in black leather, and flipped it open. It was an outlawed text, one that hadn't been legally printed in Amestris since the nation's early days, but Roy had been fortunate enough to secure a copy early on in his tenure as a State Alchemist.

He knew the pages by heart. Five-fifty-one began the section on human transmutation, marked by a gruesome illustration of a human chimera. Roy flipped through the pages, looking for hints, for possible explanations, but the only pieces that stood out were vague, fragments of sentences peppering the text. Homunculi, teases of the secrets of immortality, all of it mentioned, but none of it expounded upon.

Roy closed the book.

How had Ed ended up as – whatever it was that he'd become? How had Alphonse Elric been involved? Where had the younger brother's limbs gone, and why did everyone regard Ed as deceased, if he'd been right in Resembool the whole time?

Roy closed his eyes, willing away the beginning throbs tapping at his temples. He had the answer, or at least part of it. To find the solution, and he knew he had to, knew he couldn't leave the boy the way he was, Roy had to discover the _how_ and the _why_.

"Hey, old man! Come down here!"

Roy gathered up the mess on the floor, dumping it all back into the trunk without any care for order. Everything he needed to discover the truth was around him, was living in the walls and the floor and the ceiling.

Mechanically, Roy stood and walked down the stairs, stuck in something so fantastic that no dream could compare.

*

Ed spoke constantly, his voice pitched with anxiety. Roy had so many questions he wanted to ask, but he couldn't force any of them out past his overwhelming feeling of dread. The house, before Roy had known who the house was, had been terribly unstable. If Roy asked the wrong question, if he set Ed off, what was to stop the boy from going wild?

Who was Roy to assume he was safe, simply by knowing that Ed was the one responsible for the all the trouble?

"You don't talk much," Ed observed. "You call me out, and then you don't say anything, and I don't get that, what'd you think I was gonna do, ignore you? Dumbass, I wouldn't do that—"

It was obvious that Ed didn't have to bother with breathing. He never paused, not once, all of his sentences running together into one long mess of words, the tone of his voice jumping and falling at random. It was like listening to a busted phonograph that was being broadcast over hidden speakers, the music coming out distorted, creepy, filtering into every room of the house

He couldn't pinpoint where Ed's voice came from – nor could he even begin to imagine where the boy was, whatever remained of him. Did Ed even have a body? Roy had felt a presence in the house since he'd first arrived, had dealt with the fear of believing something was there with him, but never did he stop and think that one room was more bearable to be in than another. Where he stood in the house made no difference – Ed seemed to be everywhere.

Roy sat at the kitchen table and stared at his hands, not quite knowing what move to make next.

"You've been watching me?" Roy asked after a moment, breaking into Ed's droning monologue.

Ed didn't seem bothered by the question, or the implications. "You're in my house," Ed said, unperturbed. "You live in here, and there's not much else to do, y'know, so I kept an eye on you." A pause, then, unabashed, "You really needed it, too. Pullin' all the shit you did, how're you alive, that's what I wanna know. Can't you take care of yourself," and Ed was off again.

Keeping an eye on him? Roy remembered drinking, a voice, remembered coming home from Pinako's in a panic, raising his hands, and the house rising to stop him.

Ed had been keeping an eye on him. Roy wondered at that, bemused. How, exactly, had the boy managed that? The thought of where Ed might be keeping his eyes disturbed Roy.

Of course, the thought that Ed might not even _have_ eyes disturbed him more.

"How long have you been here?" Roy asked, loud enough to startle Ed from his own thoughts.

"How long?" Ed didn't seem to understand the question, given the amount of quiet it gave Roy. When he did answer, Roy wasn't sure what to make of it: "A while, just since it happened. Dunno."

"Since what happened?" That would be an answer worth hearing. Unfortunately, it also seemed to be one Ed didn't feel like giving, because the boy steered the conversation pointedly in another direction.

"How long've _you_ been here, huh, old man?"

Roy, tired of the stings at his age, asked a question he was certain Ed wouldn't want to hear: "Why isn't your brother here?"

Ed's chattering stopped, the house going completely still, silent. Then, uneasily, "My brother?"

Sitting up straighter, Roy frowned. "Alphonse," he said.

"He—" Ed hesitated. "How do you know about him?"

"I saw him," Roy said. "In Dublith." He couldn't bring himself to tell Ed that his brother had refused to come.

"Then he's alive." Ed paused. "He – he never came back. Did he – did you say anything? About me?"

Heart sinking, Roy said, "He seemed preoccupied."

"He—" Ed, for the first time, sounded eager. "What's he doing in Dublith? He's with Teacher?"

Something about the conversation made Roy uncomfortable. "I'm not sure. He was working in a store – Curtis something. A butcher shop?"

"That's her place," Ed said. "Al must still be studying, he must be – what's he like? What _did_ he say?"

"He," Roy licked his lips, "had automail. His arm and leg. He was… I saw a photo of him, back when he was younger." A pause. "With you and him and a girl—"

"Winry," Ed said, quiet.

"Your brother looked much older."

That seemed to throw Ed. "He looked _older_? How old?" He sounded surprised, as though the fact that the world kept moving, that time kept passing without him was something he'd never considered.

Frowning, Roy guessed, "Fifteen? Fourteen? I never bothered asking how old he was, Ed."

"Fifteen," Ed said, his voice close to a whisper. "It's been so long."

Somehow, through the quiet, Roy managed to gather his wits to repeat the earlier question: "How long have you been here?"

Ed didn't seem to hear him. "He didn't come home. He never – why didn't he come back?"

"Come back after what?" Roy asked.

No answer came. He waited for a few beats, expecting Ed to speak up again, but when the quiet pause carried on, he gave up. Rather than allowing Roy the space to think, the silence simply heightened his awareness of the fact that he wasn't alone.

He must have sat at the table for a good ten minutes as he waited for Ed to come back, although that begged the question of where the boy had gone to begin with. It was like sitting in the same compartment on a train with a person he'd never met before. Roy felt awkward, like he should speak, like he should do _something_ to – what? Console the boy?

Roy's stomach gurgled pathetically, prodding him into motion. When _had_ he last eaten? Some time the day before, on the train. And then he'd come home to his house speaking to him – or something _in_ the house, in any case.

Groaning, Roy buried his face in his hands, his back hunched.

When Ed spoke again, Roy nearly fell out of the chair he started so violently. "Why're you makin' that noise?"

A deep breath. "What noise?"

"You sound like you're in pain, are you in pain? Maybe you're hungry, I do tell you to eat, don't I? If I didn't, I will, 'cause you don't take care of yourself for shit, I _told_ you…"

"I'm going," Roy said sharply, standing up. "Look, I'm going to the cupboard."

"I see that," Ed said. "Good for you. But starin' at the cupboard's not eatin', old man."

Ed said he could see. Roy wanted to ask just how, his curiosity getting the better of him, but it felt wrong to ask. Would it be too personal? Just – how did Ed do the things he did? Perhaps he wasn't being literal about being able to see?

In the cupboard, Roy dragged out a slice of bread and jammed it in his mouth. The he let the door fall shut again.

"A slice of bread?" Ed asked, incredulous. "Mustang, that ain't a meal."

Or perhaps Ed _was_ being literal when he said he could see.

*

It hadn't taken Roy long to realize that Alphonse was an off-limits topic. He'd tried to bring the younger brother up again, sliding questions into conversation in hopes that Ed wouldn't think anything of it and might give Roy more of an answer. But Ed never let his guard down.

The trouble was, when Ed sulked, the entire house reflected it. Roy couldn't explain it, but it was as though the atmosphere itself was directly connected to the boy. It weighed down on them both.

For a brief time, Roy entertained the thought of trying to contact Alphonse again. Surely, if the younger brother knew Ed was in Resembool in some manner, he'd be willing to come back? But when he broached the topic with Ed, the boy staunchly refused.

"It's been years," he said resignedly. "And even if he – if he came back," Ed stumbled over the words, "I'm still like this. I'm just – what could I possibly do for him?"

"You don't think he would want to know?" Roy asked.

"I dunno," Ed said. "Probably. But it's been years."

"You keep saying that," Roy pointed out. "What difference does it make?"

"He's moved on." Three words, so simple, but when Ed spoke them, they sounded like the end of the world. "If he came back now, he'd have to do something."

"Do _what_?" Roy asked, frustrated. "If he's your family, then—"

"Just leave it," Ed finally said, sounding exhausted. Roy hadn't wanted to. He'd persisted with the subject, refusing to leave Alphonse Elric alone, but from that point, Ed seemed to have washed his hands of it.

In fact, the more Roy tried, the more irritated Ed got, snapping and yelling until finally, after Roy had casually asked where Al had slept in the house, the wood had extended from the wall beside Roy and popped him right in the face – not too hard, merely a gentle warning.

But then, Roy's idea of gentle was a great deal different than Ed's. He had the bruising to prove it.

The next morning, even before the sun had bothered to rise, Roy woke to the sound of Ed chattering loudly, a constant repetition of, "Wake up, wake up, wake up, it's a new day!"

Ed sounded entirely too cheerful. Roy shook off a tremor and sat up in bed, returning the words with an awkward, "Morning."

Skin itching, alive with the feel of being watched by an unblinking gaze, Roy didn't move.

Ed took issue with that. "Aren't you gonna go eat?"

"I'm not very hungry," Roy answered stiffly. Did the boy plan on nagging him indefinitely?

"You gotta eat," Ed said, managing to make the simple encouragement sound like a threat. "All you do is sit around and feel sorry for yourself. If you aren't careful, you're gonna get sick, and I can't do shit for you if you're sick, so you gotta go make yourself something, breakfast is _good_ for you—"

Apparently, Ed did.

"Fine," Roy said, anything to shut him up. "I'm going."

Ed let out a soft, satisfied sound and faded into the background as Roy rolled out of bed and dragged on his shirt. He no longer felt comfortable with undressing for sleep, despite knowing that Ed had likely seen everything there was to see –

Uncomfortable with that train of thought, Roy cleared his mind of it, heading down the stairs.

After a hurried breakfast ("stop eating the goddamn bread, there's real food in there, too, y'know, don't think I don't know it—"), Roy dragged his trunk from the upstairs bedroom into the living room.

"What're doing?" Ed asked – or rather, demanded. The boy didn't seem capable of simply asking anything.

Part of Roy rankled at the thought of being forced to report everything he did to Ed, but he quickly shoved that trivial irritation away. "I haven't gone through this, yet. I thought I'd make use of one of the shelves down here for my books."

"You haven't done much of anything," Ed pointed out bluntly.

Opening the trunk, Roy _hmph_ 'd, set on ignoring the voice. He'd gotten the majority of his books laid out on the ground, pushed into some almost-alphabetical order, when Ed finally spoke up again, a measure of eagerness in his voice. "Alchemy books," the boy said. "Really old ones…"

"They were passed down to me," Roy offered. "Most of them, anyway. A few I – purchased out of the country."

"Illegally," Ed said shrewdly, catching the insinuation. "Well, whatever, books shouldn't be illegal anyway, that's so stupid." He let out an impatient hum, as though fighting with himself about something. Then, "Read one."

Roy frowned, brows raised. "I was planning to."

A frustrated sound, "To _me_ , idiot!"

"Oh," Roy said, surprised. "I – all right."

It simply hadn't occurred to Roy. Ed could use alchemy to fight, to defend, to open doors and move walls, but he couldn’t do things as fine-controlled as read, apparently. Roy opened the book, licking a finger and turning the page.

Ed's presence in the room was much stronger than Roy had ever felt. When was the last time the boy had gotten to do something as simple as read or speak to another person?

As awkward as it felt for him, reading to a room that appeared empty, Roy couldn't find it in himself to refuse Ed.

*

By the time Roy stopped, his voice was hoarse, his throat raw. He'd read for two hours straight, too overcome by a feeling he didn't quite understand, some mixture of fear and pity, to tell Ed he wanted to stop. Of course, that ended up poorly for Roy. As absorbed as Ed was in the words, taking them in greedily, he'd eventually realized Roy's discomfort after the man's voice cracked rather noticeably. He'd immediately demanded Roy go get a drink ("What the hell is wrong with you, anyway, dumbass?"). Ed spent the day chasing after him, sniping at everything Roy did, even going as far as pushing him to bathe at one point. Roy had drawn the line there, frazzled and humiliated. He felt greasy, felt nothing short of disgusting, but the idea of being naked in that house had become questionable – how far did Ed's senses extend? If he was in the shower, was the boy even capable of not being aware?

It was difficult to pin down a single train of thought with Ed's constant pestering. Roy had wondered more than a few times whether the boy was doing it on purpose, distracting him to the best of his ability, or if it was something less sinister, simply a young boy reaching out to the first contact he'd had in years.

As preferable as the latter option was, it left Roy's heart aching.

It was late in the day by the time Roy managed to gather his thoughts long enough to think on the situation, to consider another option about the beginning of Ed's strange imprisonment and what it truly consisted of. Roy cleared his throat. He was standing in the hall, just in front of the wall shelf, unable to think of anything but that hidden room, the study, and what it might mean.

"When was the last time you saw Van Hohenheim?" Roy asked, looking for any way to drag information out of Ed. If he wouldn't discuss his brother, then perhaps his father was the way to go.

Silence, like a break before the storm, then, "WHO WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT THAT BASTARD!" Ed's voice was louder than Roy had ever heard it, strong enough that it forced him back a step, nearly physical in its power. "I HATE HIM!" Ed sounded on the verge of a tantrum. "IT'S HIS FAULT, ALL OF IT, IF HE'D BEEN HERE—"

As if all the air had been sucked out of the house, Ed's rage deflated. Roy, still reeling from the outburst, had to take a moment to collect himself.

"What was his fault?" he asked. When he received no answer aside from an incoherent, sullen mumble, Roy couldn't say he was surprised.


	6. Chapter 6

In learning what Ed would and would not speak about, Roy also learned to read between the lines. Ed hated Hohenheim for not being around. He blamed the man for not preventing some unnamed accident. Alphonse, on the other hand, had clearly been close by, had likely had some part in the transmutation that had cost Ed his body – and perhaps Alphonse's own limbs? Roy was certain Alphonse Elric was tied into whatever the cause was, and Ed had admitted that he couldn't understand where his brother was or why he wasn't with _Ed_ , though he'd been quick to change the subject.

Not for the first time, Roy wished Alphonse hadn't been so resistant. Ed would have opened up if his brother had been there, would have shared all the things that he refused to voice for Roy.

Or maybe, Roy thought, the idea going belly-up, _maybe_ Ed would have said even less.

Roy knew he was close to the truth, and the deeper he dug, the more desperate he found himself for the answer. Perhaps it was because of how on edge he was, how badly the knowledge, or rather the possibility, that he was under constant observation was affecting him, but whatever the reason, Roy had fallen into a manic mood, lying awake for hours, unable to rest his mind from unraveling a tale that wasn't his own. He traded nightmares of bloodshed and war for the constant jabbering of a lonely boy, torn from the life he'd loved.

In a strange sense, Roy had become Ed's keeper, the only one suitable to hold the truth of the boy's story. He would not fail where Pinako had, where Ed's own brother had.

That morning, he woke before Ed decided to rouse him and went straight down the stairs, pausing in front of the wall shelf. He didn't know what to expect, how Ed would react, but Roy refused to back down.

"I'd like to come in," he said, running a hand along the wall. "Please."

Ed still had yet to speak to him that morning, For a moment, Roy wondered if he'd asked too soon, but then the wall shuddered, light crackling in an arch as the wall shelf was seemingly sucked into the wood around it, the space opening into a doorway.

"Okay," Ed said. "Whatever."

The hidden room looked quite like it had the first time Roy had come in. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, clouds of it stirred into the air with each step he took. The circle was on the ground, just as it had been the last time. Roy stared at it for a few breathless seconds before turning to the bookshelf along the far wall, stepping closer to casually inspect it.

They looked untouched. Roy nearly rolled his eyes at the thought. Of _course_ they were. Who would have been around to read them?

"Sleep well?" Ed asked, and launched into his typical stream-of-consciousness speech.

Roy let the boy chatter on for a beat before he interrupted, saying, "Why did you do it?"

Ed broke off, derailing immediately into, "Do _what_?"

"Human transmutation," Roy said, "why did you do it? It's the ultimate taboo." A pause, then he added, taking a chance, "Your brother wouldn't tell me, either."

Even the dust in the room seemed to freeze. Ed went quiet. The doorway remained opened, however, and no brutal alchemical fists seemed forthcoming, so Roy held his ground.

"We," Ed began, then abruptly stopped, as though he couldn't quite gather his thoughts. "It's that we didn't know," he said. "We weren't thinking like that, like it would end up this way. The cost," Ed trailed off.

Releasing a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding, Roy asked, "What do you mean?"

"Mom," Ed said, "we just wanted her back. It never seemed wrong. But," the ceiling beams shuddered with some strange parody of emotion, "we weren't gods. When people die, they're just – dead, they're dead and that's that."

Roy felt those words with every fiber of his being. "They are," he agreed quietly.

"We," Ed laughed, a short, harsh sound, "didn't have what it took. To make her again."

That unsettling feeling returned to Roy. "You mentioned a cost…"

"Look at me," Ed said. "You saw Al – but look at _me_."

"I can't see you," Roy said. "Your body was taken?"

"You don't get it yet?" Ed's voice had taken on a flat quality. "My body for Mom, and for Al. He – you know, it would have taken Al, too, the rebound."

Confused, Roy turned from the bookshelf, looking again at the circle. "He was fine," he said. "Just—" The arm and the leg. "He lost his limbs?"

"No," Ed said. "That was me."

That made even less sense. "I saw him," Roy insisted. "His arm and leg—"

"No," Ed said again, "that was me. He lost – Al lost everything."

"I don't understand." Roy's mind grasped for logic.

"It was, y'know, I'm his brother," Ed said. "And it was my idea. So I traded."

"Traded," Roy echoed, the words tasting sour in his mouth. "You mean to say…"

"It was the only way to get Al back," Ed said. "So I'm here, and he's…" Ed stopped. "And he left."

Roy felt a spark of anger at the younger boy. If Ed had traded places with him, had given Alphonse his life back, how could the boy have just left?

But one thing still bothered him, still plagued his mind. "If that's the case," Roy began, "then how am I speaking to you? If your body is gone…"

"Not gone," Ed said. "Traded. Look at me, Mustang."

"I told you," Roy said. "I can't,"

"You are."

Roy sucked in a breath. Recalling his earlier thoughts, those days when he'd been certain it was the house itself that wanted Roy gone, he said, slowly, the words trembling off his tongue, "The house."

"The circle," Ed said in lieu of an answer, "is what keeps me here."

Roy's eyes were drawn to the seal on the ground, and finally, the pieces fell into place.

*

It was strange. Roy had found the answer he'd been searching for, but the only thing it gave him was the knowledge that nothing could simply end there. Knowing meant taking it a step further.

Knowing meant having the responsibility to free Ed.

Enlightening, that's what it was. Roy had let the thought settle in his mind, had gone about the day the same as he had ever since stepping into the house, into that odd air bubble within reality.

Ed was stuck. Roy was stuck. The world was hell and here they were, brought together. Sitting on the floor in the hidden room, Roy had found a solution, the very thing he'd been searching for when he'd purchased the house.

Freedom. Together, he and Ed could be rid of the mess they'd found themselves in.

If he asked the boy, if he made the offer, would Ed accept? If Roy offered the boy a way out of a life without movement, without even something as small as the ability to hold a book, would Ed be willing to take the chance?

He wondered, then, if the boy even considered himself alive.

As he lay in bed that night, Ed thoughtfully quiet for once, Roy imagined the funeral pyre he could make, falling asleep to thoughts of fire.

Morning came to the alarm of Ed's voice, that now all too familiar pestering, "Wake up! I was thinking, you know, okay, you're a state alchemist, right, I think that's shitty, actually, but you must be sort of good, get your ass DOWN HERE, okay…"

Roy tossed off the covers and left his gloves sitting next to his bed.

He'd speak with Ed about it tomorrow, Roy decided. They had plenty of time.

*

It occurred to him, the next day, that if Ed _was_ the house, Roy was literally walking around inside of the boy's body.

Suddenly, 'unsettling' wasn't a strong enough word.

"Can you feel anything?" Roy asked, taking a moment before beginning to sort through the rest of his trunk. The books had been put onto the shelves, but he'd found all sorts of things in the process. Postcards (the hardest to look at), photos, old editions of newspapers from across Amestris, his original State Alchemist certification – there was an entire lifetime in that trunk.

"No," Ed said. "I just know stuff, like when you're, I dunno, walking around. I know it, but I don't – I can't say _how_."

Roy folded up the first of the papers, stacking them to the side. "But you can see." And speak and hear.

"Yeah," Ed said. "But I don't know how. I don't know how the seal works, not entirely." He paused. "It just happened. I don't think Al knew what he was doing when he did it."

"I've never even heard of binding a soul," Roy admitted.

"It's not something people should be learning," Ed said, wistful. "It would've been better. The other way."

The other way meaning death. Roy swallowed, feeling the weight of his decision. He could speak to Ed now. He could bring it up with the boy and give him the choice.

"Al couldn't have known," Ed continued. "If he'd known, he would've come back." There was something desperate in his voice. Ed was trying to convince himself of it.

"I'm sure he didn't," Roy said woodenly, and continued in his task.

Another day wouldn't hurt. There was no need to rush.

*

Strange, how no amount of waiting could force _tomorrow_ to come. Roy went through the motions of days over and over, of waking and sleeping and talking and eating and simply living in the moment, and every time he thought to himself, _today could be the day_ , something would change.

His focus shifted too easily, Roy decided. That was all.

It took him three days before he ever went back into the hidden room, a place where Ed seemed ready to welcome him now at any time. When he finally sat down on the floor, back cracking, and reached out to the blood seal, Roy realized he'd left his gloves sitting by his bed.

How silly of him. He'd have to try again tomorrow.

But his reticence, sudden and unwelcome as it was, was cruel. Roy was torn. Every time he spoke to Ed, every time he heard the boy go on and on and ask question after pointless, endless question, Roy felt the guilt grow, gnawing at his insides, nearing unbearable.

Ed, he remembered, was not simply a house. Ed was a boy, one trapped in a situation beyond his control.

Sitting opposite the blood seal, unable and unwilling to move, Roy wondered how long his selfishness would keep them both static.

*

Their little air bubble against reality wouldn't hold forever. Roy hadn't expected it to. But when several sharp raps sounded against the front door, followed by the impatient voice of an old woman, Roy was forced to admit the fact that he wasn't yet ready to face the world.

"Mustang," Pinako called through the door, slamming her fist against the wood twice more. "I know you're in there. Answer the door!"

Roy, having been three steps away from walking into the kitchen, into plain view, stepped back, taking refuge in the hallway. Ed was silent.

"Mustang," Pinako tried again, her voice losing its surety. "I need to speak with you."

Roy stared at a small dark spot on the wall, lips pursed.

There were no more knocks. Roy heard Pinako sigh, heard her stamp a foot on the front porch. Then, quiet.

Roy didn't move for several minutes, and to his surprise, Ed didn't speak either. When he finally dared to go to the door, to look out the peephole, there was no one in sight, the old woman gone. Sagging against the door, Roy let out a relieved breath.

Ed broke the quiet first. "Granny," he said, nearly whispered it. His voice was wrought with pain, more muted than Roy had ever heard him. "She – it's been so long," Ed continued longingly.

Roy said nothing.

"I think she's forgotten me," Ed said, and had Ed the ability to cry, Roy was sure he would have been doing just that. "Al and Winry and – they're all gone. For real." Ed went quiet again for a beat, then finished, "They're all gone, and I'm here." The _forever_ need not be said.

 _Responsibility_ , Roy's mind chided him. He ought to say something. Ed had gone so quiet, and it was just unlike the boy. Roy wasn't sure he could handle it, not when Ed's constant noise had become so much a part of his day.

"I'm sure," he said, "that they haven't." He immediately regretted the words. "I could – go and get her." He didn't want to, not really. But if it was what Ed wanted… "If you want, I could—"

"What difference would it make?" Ed asked. "If they know I'm here – if they'd known since the beginning – you know what that would do?"

"What?" Roy asked. He wasn't sure this was a conversation he wanted to have.

"It would keep them here," Ed said, anger briefly flaring up in his voice, though at what, Roy wasn't entirely certain. "They'd – they'd feel like they had to, I _know_ they would. And they'd all just – I can't be the thing that keeps them tied down. Not Al or Granny or Winry. I couldn't do that to them."

"But," Roy hesitated before finishing, "why wouldn't you want them here with you?"

"Because I don't want anyone wasting their life trying to fix somethin' that can't be fixed," Ed said, the words quiet and intense.

"What makes you think it wouldn't be worth it to them?" Roy asked.

"What makes you think it would be worth it to _me_?" Ed replied.

To that, Roy could offer no response.

*

Ed's mood had remained somber for the rest of the day following Pinako's visit, and Roy had been able to think of nothing else. When Roy read aloud, something he'd taken to doing for Ed to pass the time, the boy didn't show the same enthusiasm, didn't argue points or demand explanations of the newer theories. Ed's sorrow chased him into sleep, worry forcing its way into his dreams, of him an old man, still living in Resembool, clinging to the promise of tomorrow, always reaching for what would never come. When Roy's eyes snapped open, the sun already up and not a peep from Ed, Roy knew with absolute certainty that selfishness was no longer an option.

Today, he thought as he pulled on his gloves, would be the day.

As he walked down the steps, Roy tried to summon that earlier determination. He imagined himself in the flames, his perfect absolution, the last act of alchemy that would set them both free.

He nearly tripped off the stairs, he was shaking so badly.

Roy could feel sweat gathering under his arms, on his hairline. He was terrified. This feeling left that earlier fear, when Ed was still a mystery, paling in comparison. As he raised a trembling, gloved hand and knocked on the wall leading to the hidden room, it suddenly occurred to Roy, the thought popping into his mind with crystal clarity, _I don't want to die._

It had been so long since he'd honestly thought that.

Ed opened the doorway for him without words, still sullen and quiet from his epiphany the day before. Roy couldn't stop himself from shaking, even as he dropped onto the ground, crossing his legs. Eyes glued to the circle, Roy's mouth went dry, cottony.

He didn't want to die.

Ed still didn't speak. Roy licked his lips, tried to moisten his tongue, and said, cautiously, "Good morning."

"Morning," Ed replied before going quiet again.

Questions bubbled up in Roy's mind, demanding answers. He closed his eyes against the noise in his head, trying to focus, wondering, not for the first time, how long he would let this selfishness go on.

He would not die here today – but perhaps, it was time he gave Ed the respite the boy so clearly yearned for.

"Ed," Roy said, trying not to show his reluctance, how uneasy he was, "what do you want?"

The question could have meant anything. Roy could have been referring to conversation, to some sort of way of occupying their time, but the true answer was in Ed's perception.

"Want?" Ed echoed the word as though the meaning was foreign to him. "I don't know," he said. "I haven't known what it feels like to want in so long. I guess that what I want is to," he broke off, and the room around Roy seemed to waver. Then, much softer, "Most days, I just want out of here."

The words were clear enough. Roy pulled off a glove and touched the edge of the circle, amazed at the way his hand shook. "Do you want me to help you?"

He almost couldn't ask. Despite the fact that he'd been planning on it for so long, it still hurt in a way that he didn't understand. The atmosphere had shifted, was changing like the tide, and what could have been just another day became a continuation of the mess they'd found themselves in. If Ed said no, the cycle would just move on, and Roy wasn't sure he'd get the guts to make the offer again. But if Ed said yes –

A soft humming sound, decisive. "Okay," Ed said, just like that, a simple answer to an impossibly complicated question.

Roy lifted his hand, licking his thumb like a mother would to clean her child's cheek, and pressed it to the edge of the circle. A single slide and the blood crumbled, smearing as easily as if it had been painted on only minutes before.

It was easy to do. Roy told himself that the way his vision blurred was just a factor of how intense his focus was. That his face was suddenly damp had nothing to do with it.

*

Roy expected something grand, like the equivalent of an explosion, but the day he erased what little was left of Edward Elric from the world, there was no dramatic reaction. It didn't even rain.

Ed didn't seem frightened at all, though it was difficult to tell. His voice gave nothing away in the brief moment before he faded, simply a, "Bye, old man," like he was stepping out of the house and would return moments later.

Roy worked until there was nothing but a faint imprint of the seal. And then he stood, dusting off his knees, and walked numbly into the kitchen. He sat at the table, as calmly as he'd done every day before that, and folded his arms, resting his head on them.

He couldn't understand why it hurt. It was right, exactly what he should have done all along, but now that he'd done it, now that he was absolutely certain he was alone, Roy's heart felt like someone had gotten it in their fist.

Humans, Roy thought, are completely selfish. That stupid boy was gone, passed to whatever version of paradise existed on the other side of life, and all Roy could think was that he already missed him.

In the unnatural quiet of an empty house, Roy sat and wondered how the world could possibly still be moving.

*

His bag was packed. Roy didn't bother bringing much, just a few articles of clothing, the necessities. It would be a long trip. He hoped it was worth it.

As he closed his suitcase, as prepared as he would ever be, the phone rang. The noise was jarring, the house having been silent for several days on end, and Roy started violently. It took him a moment to realize just what the sound was, and even then, he was hesitant about answering.

But he did. "Hello?"

" _Mustang!_ " Pinako sounded both exasperated and relieved. " _I'm surprised you picked up._ "

"I've been busy," Roy said. "What do you need?"

A pause. Then, " _Al is here_ ," she said. " _Got here last night. He said he wants to speak to you._ "

Unbidden, Roy found his eyes drifting to the direction of the once hidden room. "Is that so."

" _Come over._ "

"I'm on my way out the door," Roy said. "I'm going out of town."

" _Are you_ ," Pinako said. " _Al can drive you to the station, then._ "

Roy closed his eyes. "Send him. I'm leaving now."

" _He'll be there in five_ ," Pinako said, and the line clicked.

Reluctantly, Roy hung up the phone and grabbed his suitcase. When he left the house, he locked the door and walked slowly down the hill. He didn't have to wait by the roadside for very long. Within minutes, he could hear the sound of a car chugging along, the body of it appearing into view.

Roy, suitcase in hand, stood at the side of the road and watched Alphonse drive, stepping back as the car slowed for him.

"Mr. Mustang," Alphonse said stiffly.

"Roy, please," he said. "It's – good to see you again."

Alphonse's lips twitched. "You wanted me here," he said as Roy climbed into the car. "And now you're leaving?"

"I don't need you here anymore," Roy said simply.

Alphonse started the car down the road, glancing sideways at his passenger. "You don't?"

"No."

"What about the house?" Alphonse asked. "You – I came all this way." There was something despairing in his tone. Roy found himself wishing he could sympathize with _this_ brother, but he couldn't quite connect with him. All he knew about Alphonse Elric were stories, and stories rarely made much sense in reference to the subject.

"The house," Roy said after a beat, "is just a house."

"Then why did you bother me?" Alphonse asked. "Why drag me out here?"

"You refused, if you'll remember," Roy returned. "Why you're here now has very little to do with me."

He wanted to tell Alphonse exactly what had happened. He wanted to let the boy in on just what he'd left behind, but Roy, as they pulled up to the station, knew what that could do to a person.

The guilt alone could kill Alphonse.

"I appreciate the ride," he said instead, and stepped out of the car. Alphonse leaned over, handing him his suitcase.

"That's it?" Alphonse asked. "There's nothing more?"

Roy wasn't sure what answer Alphonse really wanted. But something told him that Alphonse was better off ignorant. "There never was," Roy said, and closed the door.

As he walked away, he could feel Alphonse's eyes following him. The decision was made, though. Roy could grieve for Ed alone, but Alphonse Elric had grieved for his brother for years. To know the truth…

"Express to Central, boarding now!" A loud whistle followed the announcement. Roy pulled his ticket from his pocket, holding his suitcase close to him as he pushed through the crowd, and handed it to the conductor.

It would do him no good to dwell on things that would never come to pass. He did, after all, have a very long ride ahead of him.

_End._


End file.
